Guild Wars 2

Blacklight.2871:

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.

Somethng I mentioned back in Beta was that characters in Tyria don’t swear, and that always strikes me as odd when we’re talking about any kind of fiction. You show me an entire town where not one person ever swears in it.

It simply does not exist.

They might not swear using the words WE recognize as swearing, but in every language, every culture, there are “curse words” devised for the same purposes (expressing pain or anger/frustration/stress) that have the same taboo in their culture as any word replaced by “kitten” on these forums.

It seems… very unrealistic and unimmersive for Tyrians not to have such words or expressions.

The closest I’ve heard was “By Ogden’s Hammer! What savings!”

My feedback:

Overall, I just found much of the personal story to be lacking in seriousness or cheesy. That isn’t to say all of it is. The Norn I’m doing with the Durmand Priory is actually engaging me and I think its overall decent enough.

The human I did with the Order of Whispers, on the other hand, is just bad at times. Here you have this ancient, secretive order who is in the shadows influencing kings and many of your interactions with other order members play out a lot more like Inspector Gadget than James Bond.

The human character creation choice is another example. My biggest regret is that I never found my parents.. ok, ok… or that I never found my sister’s body… cool cool… or that I never joined the circus. Wait, seriously? The circus? See the problem here? (As an aside, its also very anticlimactic how soon in the story and relatively easily these personal decision items are resolved).

I also tend to find a lot of the dialogue in the personal story to be fairly trite or cheesy or… maybe a good way to describe it would be to say it reminds me of a kids cartoon. I agree with the fellow who said the NPC ambient dialogue generally sounds more mature. Keep in mind, I’m not saying don’t have fun with it. You can have fun with it while still avoiding this problem. Just earlier I was listening to the Norn woman bemoan her potential mate hanging out with his Son of Svanir friends. It had that nice sense of humor, but it sounded like the kind of sentences real people would actually use.

Honestly, a lot of folks have complained about the voice acting. I think its fine. I think the problem is far, far more the lines these people were given to read. I hate to speak negatively of what I’m sure folks put a lot of work into, but you asked for feedback so here it is – and like I said, I do think a lot of the ambient dialogue is far better.

There’s also the kindof… “rushed” nature to some of the character development, and some development which just flat out doesn’t make sense. So, I help defend the garrison from centaurs and all of a sudden Logan Thackery and I are Bff and he’s asking me to do a whole bunch of important missions? It feels more rushed than the opening sequence of the Lost in Space movie. Or, the Hero of Shaemore who fought off the centaur hordes and did a series of other great acts is called with great urgency because… someone’s kid got lost? Really? It’s just completely contrived and not in the least believable.

I guess I could say, go ahead and watch through videos of the TOR personal story quests or whatnot. I know its the cliche thing to say or to point to, but they did a really good job and if you’d like to get a sense of what a lot of folks would be happier with, that’s a good example. For a good look at the balance in seriousness and humor, I’d say take a look at the Imperial Agent story. It certainly gets fairly dark in the later portions, but the start has a lot of a kind of classic “secret agenty” humor… hitting on women, doing somewhat unbelievable missions, etc., but while keeping it all believable.

The best way to describe it is to say that playing that story, I’m immersed and taking it in as though I was standing there, but in the stories I’ve done in this game so far I’m too often losing my suspension of disbelief as a particular line of dialogue stands out as silly.

One final note, and I hate to say it because its partly a matter of style or aesthetic choice, but the “two characters standing in front of a backdrop,” in my opinion, just exacerbates a lot of these problems. When I’m already having a hard time buying into something and I see two people who are supposed to be exchanging packages or arguing or sneaking around somewhere just standing there with blank stares, it only makes it worse. Again, check out the cutscenes in TOR. Even mediocre dialogue is saved in some of those because you see the characters actually doing what their dialogue suggests they are.

Devildoc.6721:

Blacklight.2871:

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.

Somethng I mentioned back in Beta was that characters in Tyria don’t swear, and that always strikes me as odd when we’re talking about any kind of fiction. You show me an entire town where not one person ever swears in it.

It simply does not exist.

They might not swear using the words WE recognize as swearing, but in every language, every culture, there are “curse words” devised for the same purposes (expressing pain or anger/frustration/stress) that have the same taboo in their culture as any word replaced by “kitten” on these forums.

It seems… very unrealistic and unimmersive for Tyrians not to have such words or expressions.

The closest I’ve heard was “By Ogden’s Hammer! What savings!”

I’m fairly certain I’ve heard “kitten#8221; a few times.

I would have to agree with the OP, but my one comment would have to be that once you complete your personal story quest, the emails from Rytlok are a bit creepy.

I mean, it’s almost like some jilted lover is mailing you out of the blue…I appreciate the continuity, but he does come off as a bit clingy. Sending unwarranted emails once you’ve moved on (to The Vigil) generally puts one into the ‘creeper zone,’ and it doesn’t help that emails end with stuff like, “I’ll be watching you.”

I’ve only really put a lot of effort into the sylvari story personally, but I’ve seen one of the Asura stories from playing with my girlfriend the whole time.

Honestly, while I love the sylvari as a whole much more than I expected after seeing their aesthetic rework, I haven’t been a fan of the stories at all. While the White Stag and Malyck stories were interesting in general and dealing with the Nightmare Court is always fun, I never really felt like my character had much to do with the story. She was never the focal point of any of them other than dueling a few Court members. Otherwise she served as a side character for the White Stag and Malyck.

It’s the same thing that bugs me about Trahearne, to be honest. He’s supposed to be a Firstborn and some powerful character, but he comes out of nowhere and suddenly takes command of everything, and even nabs the sword that should, by all rights, have ended up being given to the PC for their Wyld Hunt. Do you know the WoW questline of reforging Quel’delar? It’s okay to give PCs legendary weapons! Trahearne supposedly isn’t even supposed to fight (we all know how that goes), but he just “Oh I’ll take that back to the Pale Tree for you and totally won’t keep it myself!”

I feel like Trahearne is Guild Wars’ Thrall in terms of being a forced Mary Sue we’re all supposed to rally behind. I really don’t like him at all, but that’s neither here or there atm. More of a digression from the same issues with the sylvari story bleeding out into main sylvari NPCs.

Overall I’m not really a huge fan of how briefly the stories are resolved either. Each one is only a few levels long and then suddenly and abruptly it ends, never to be brought up again. The “helping a lesser race” chapter is especially immersion-breaking. While I can see wanting to get aid against Zhaitan as a viable mission, that doesn’t seem to be the purpose going INTO the quest…Which makes taking time out to be some random Tyrian anthropologist very odd and misplaced.

Having played through the Charr Iron Legion/Honorable Soldier storylines, and the Norn Defending the Mists storyline, I have a few things to weigh in on.

First: Thosekittencutscenes. They remind me of old JRPGs, where there was only enough room to fit two character portraits on the screen, so they had to be swapped out so you could see who was talking. And that’s not a good thing.

I don’t see the need to pull the player away from the action or controls at all for these situations. Why not just let the dialogue play out in game? The player’s character can still talk, and everyone else can have the conversations proper, without delays for a new talker to fade in. And with proper establishment of who’s in the conversation, even if they’re mostly quiet. Halfway through the first re-meeting of Destiny’s Edge I forgot exactly who was there. And that’s an important moment.

I can’t speak either way in regards to Trahearne, except that he seemed an alright character for a guardsman (which is what I think he is in the Sylvari story).

The other thing, now that I think of it, is the interconnectedness of the story-arcs. With the Charr, they’re kinda connected. But with everyone else, there’s almost no lead in. No establishment that there is even a problem. One moment you’re killing Vidkun’s Monster, the next you’re hunting down a Charr-car with some soldiers? There’s no indication that my Norn even knows any Charr even that well.

I really do love the charr story, granted it left me wanting more from all the others…thanks though! It reminded me of Ghost of ascalon book so much!

I can’t speak either way in regards to Trahearne, except that he seemed an alright character for a guardsman (which is what I think he is in the Sylvari story).

He’s supposed to be a Firstborn researcher who’s researching Orr, etc…Then suddenly becomes Commander of the unified army, steals the sylvari PC’s legendary sword when it’s your Wyld Hunt to actually do the fighting against Zhaitan and he’s supposed to just be a researcher, and…yeah. Screw Trahearne.

First, the things that I loved.

I loved all of the branching storylines. Obviously the first 30 levels are the most drastic, but I really appreciated the fact that even as ‘my personal story’ converged on ’everyone’s story,’ I was still given lots of different options for how I approached things. Even though I knew where it would go in the end, I was still excited to replay it again just to make different choices and play different missions. “What if I’d chosen a different fear? What if I’d investigated those missing scouts after all?”

I loved when choices I made and characters I’d met much earlier turned up again, such as running into the Quaggans from Falooaloo in Orr, and having Baroosh come with me to invade the corpse ship.

What I didn’t like was that this seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. It would have strongly helped the story had the friends I’d met during the first part of my quest followed me all the way through. The human storyline was particularly notable for this: Lord Faren was pretty much a third wheel all the way through, never really added anything to the story, and disappeared just as suddenly and without closure. It didn’t even occur to me until I’d joined the Order of Whispers and out of the blue remembered “Wait a minute… I never saw my best friend again!” Same with my sister. She had like three lines and then she gets whisked away. What a touching family reunion.

The story does a good job of introducing you to a lot of different characters depending on the choices you make, even in Orr to a smaller extent. But it removes them all just as swiftly as they come. I realize that it would have been a monumental task to actually allow your buddies like Lord Faren or the Sylvari twins to follow you throughout the entire game. But if you are going to throw a bunch of different characters at us, you can’t just put them on a bus after you’re done with them.

I couldn’t agree more Devil Doc.

I’ll give my feedback, I love giving feedback when beta testing.

I went through to 80 on the PS twice. Once a human, once a norn.

I have also done 3 different Human origins, rich guy w/no parents, Street rat w/dead sister and commoner who didn’t join the circus. These parts for every race, except maybe sylvari, are great, one plot point does a god job moving to the next then…the main story happens. The story take and abrupt turn in most cases. For examples go to the human sub forum read anything to do with the Sister. It’s basically “Oh god my sister is alive” 2 seconds later “Do I have a sister? I thought I did…naw I’m an only child”

There are things in the beginning I thought were GREAT, like being a noble you go to a party to question party goers, you over hear a conversation about an event that happens in the commoner story line.

Around the quest called “meet your friend in lion arch” it becomes the same story, splits IF you pic a different order then back again separate stories then “battle for claw island” it becomes EXACTLY the same just you faction friend is different.

Splits again till you come back to claw island then same thing no matter what you choose then you meet Tharaine and IMO the story just falls apart. It’s no longer your story but you become robin to Tharaine’s very lazy, very bossy, very annoying, very hatible batman.

I call him Tharaine Fordring…for oh so many reasons. Sorry to bring up “THAT game” but the comparisons are there. Like Fordring, Tharaine does nothing but is destined to become the hero and for no reason other then…bad story telling…in both…gets this legendary sword that smites evil. Finally in both, when it comes to the epic conclusion. Sorry in both cases I should say “epic” conclusion. Like Fordring, Theraine does NOTHING.

It’s worse in Gw2 cause “This is my story” well when the final half of “my story” is just being Theraine’s “man/woman behind the curtain” when he gets all the praise and judging from the PS end game loot “fix” all the good booty.

IMO the Ps starts to fall apart around lvl 30 then slowly just crumbles till finally you get to Fort Trinity and…WOW…just…WOW..it’s sloppy, full of plot holes and just rushes you to the end.

A bit before that actually. I got the mission where the Azura sets the bomb to destroy the bone ship which was removed cause it was bugged then put back in. which, well, FUN FACT ANET: When you remove something cause it’s bugged you generally want to fix it before putting it back in.

Planting the bomb went ok but I noticed the “Micheal Bay pan swooshing cinematic showing nothing that had to do with what was going on”; just had subtitles no spoken dialogue. Defending the trigger went fine, then the ending. Recover the Azura’s corpse. the marker is halfway up the map, the SECOND you hit the water to swim it auto completes and you some cinematic that, again, has nothing to do with whats going on in the mission. I think the unvoiced dialogue is “look there’s his body” and it’s showing the camera panning really fast over some bit of random water.

Then there’s the actual Battle for Fort Trinity…what a mess.

The undead attack, a running theme since lvl 30 which never gets old, and Tharaine does his very best Cobra commander impersonation. “RETREAT!”

continued…

Didn’t he say, numerous times, the more of our people that fall to the undead the stronger they get? Then he turns around and leaves a huge chunk of our forces behind to die…3 times?! Being “my story” I just go along with it? The risen giants may have been a bit much but when Tharine, Thrall and myself went to the Caverns of Time and saw what would happen if Deathwing wasn’t stopped. Wait no…umm…sorry into the Vision of the Future where Tharaine sees what happens is Zhatan isn’t stopped.

When we saw the future that, being my story, oddly DIDN’T include my character we took on 3 giants but at fort trinity we have big bone ship sinking cannons. Hmmm..

So then for no reason, I think a dragon flew over cause I heard it but didn’t see it, the sky turns brown and suddenly flies. Apparently some super orb that I STILL have no idea where it came from doing two of the 3 factions. This super orb is stolen by a bunch of traitors who after you beat them up just decide to come with you.

You put the super orb in it’s super holder and, just like that, the corruption is clean.

…..

If you have an orb that came from god knows where that can clean the undead corruption “just like that” then why do you need to kill the eye, the mouth, get the cauldron from risen who can poison and bleed robots (which was also ends abruptly.)? Why do you need the dragon soul…err random air ship cannon…when you have this super orb?

Once the corruption was clean you take back the fort. Which after other story quests I was expecting an epic nail biting battle with risen Giants and waves and waves of risen. what I got. About 7 risen and a cut scene. The whole “the more who fall, the stronger Zhaitan’s army gets” apparently not when you have a super orb. The 12 risen giants? Must have either got bored and went home or Tharaine ran when obviously they weren’t that much of a threat.

Then it just gets worse from there.

Judging by the other content in the game for post 70, GW2 was just not finished.

Skolops.2604:

For a good look at the balance in seriousness and humor, I’d say take a look at the Imperial Agent story. It certainly gets fairly dark in the later portions, but the start has a lot of a kind of classic “secret agenty” humor… hitting on women, doing somewhat unbelievable missions, etc., but while keeping it all believable.

I don’t want to derail the thread, but I just wanted to say, the Imperial Agent story in SWTOR was phenomenal. My only complaint about it was that some of the later story sequences were completely at odds with the standard, “go to planet, do quests for the empire, hurt the republic,” leveling system. Just one of those situations where the mechanics of the game spoiled my immersion a bit.

But the story itself? Fantastic. And the characters were amazingly well done. I had a strong emotional response toward almost every single non-trivial NPC in the personal story.

I haven’t played enough of the other race’s storylines to notice any difference, but the charr storyline was absolutely fantastic. I played two charr at least up to level 30 now and I would agree that character development was very well done and all the npcs were memorable and likeable.

As far as feedback goes I wanted to say that the characters of Destiny’s Edge are a bit disappointing when compared to those from Eye of the North. Maybe characters like Jora, Vekk, Gwen, Ogden, Oola, Livia and Pyre were supposed to be unique because they acted as ambassadors for their people, but they are much more appealing somehow.

Not sure if this is the place since I’ve not played the Charr story very far at all, but ANet has asked for feedback, so feedback they shall receive!

Coming from GW, I expected a mixed bag as far as dialogue is concerned. There are some real groaners in GW, but also some gems. I still chuckle when Togo asks Mhenlo if Cynn is in earshot after Arborstone, and I loved Winds of Change.

So far in GW2 I love the dialogues I see out in the world, and Logan has a couple of good one-liners – Trial of Julius Zamon, for instance – but for the most part the Personal Story is sub-par, and not just in dialogue. I have played a human noble to 80 but have taken extended breaks from the personal story because, like actual cheese, I can only take ingest so much of it in one sitting.

I don’t work as a writer, so perhaps I’ve no right to say this, but to my ears some of the dialogue seems as though it was written without thought as to how it might sound, as if it were intended to be read rather than acted. I have no complaints as far as the voice acting is concerned, but I don’t use the English audio. I use instead the German audio, which is phenomenal (when it isn’t missing). At times the German VAs have very little to work with as far as motivation – you do not ever tell an actor to walk out the door, unless you have first given him a reason to – yet they turn out marvelous performances. I actually look forward to scenes with Logan because of Sascha Draeger, and despite my inability to forgive the Charr for what they did to Lady Althea, I created a Charr alt just to hear Holger Lowenberg as Rytlock.

I never expected to be the central figure after 30 – I was never the lead in GW, after all – so I don’t mind Trahearne taking the limelight. I was hoping, though, that the choices I made in the beginning would have some importance later on. I understand that the dragons don’t discriminate so there is some symbolism in having everyone, regardless of origin, face the same situation in the end. I nevertheless think that there should be little nods to that origin along the way. For example, a noble’s family might decide he/she needed to stay in Divinity’s Reach and enter politics or get married, or whatever, rather than run off to join some order to fight a dragon in a faraway land. They might even lock him/her up, and it might be up to Lothario Faren to break or sneak him/her out. By just putting some Ministry guards around a tower somewhere in Kryta, and maybe a cut scene of the angry parents or your sister/one of Faren’s girlfriends sneaking you a note about his rescue plans, you would be reminded that your character is still a person. He/she isn’t just a hero; he/she still has a family, and friends and a life, and a home. These are the things we’re supposedly fighting for, after all, so it would make sense to show them every now and again. Otherwise you’re left with a story that is mostly flat, stale and unengaging, and a hero that is at best an absentminded narcissist.

Aside from the style issues, there is also the problem of logic. Sometimes, the stories have none. So I carry this deep regret that my sister’s body was never recovered, and despite being a civilian am willing to risk life and limb to hunt down clues to her fate, but when I find her, alive and relatively well, I am elated for perhaps five minutes and then completely forget about her? This only makes sense if I am a sociopath.

After dismissing my long-lost sister without batting an eye, I become overly attached to rather irritating people I just met (Tybalt, C-4 happy Asura, I’m looking at you). Arguably I have far more interaction with Tojj and Elli, and after he is sniped right in front of me, I am able to very calmly inform Trahearne of his death and blather about how his sacrifice will be remembered. This only makes sense if I also suffer from MPD or selective amnesia. Are there shrinks in Tyria?

And it’s not just my reaction to Tybalt that’s off, it’s the whole idea that a human would so easily accept a Charr as a partner, without so much as an off-hand “Are you sure about this?” or “My family would disown me if they knew about this!” or even a quirked eyebrow, when the two races have been at each others’ throats for centuries. It’s especially odd if you chose Ascalonian heritage when Logan racially profiles you earlier. This only makes sense if, in addition to my mental health issues, I also stand for nothing and have no grasp whatsoever of either history or the current political climate. My, what a charming individual I am!

I think much of this could be remedied if there was a consistent character voice and more mature tone, and if the amateur fantasy role play language was edited out as much as possible. (Duck and brandy sounds snooty, yes, but has anyone seen an actual duck in the game? I haven’t.) If Mr Stein and his team are up to the task, I say give them a crack at it.

My main criticisms of the personal story, particularly pre-Trahearne because that guy is a completely separate issue, would be the cohesiveness and continuity of the story. As I expressed in the first post, part of what made the Charr story so effective, to me, was the little touches that kept with me, like the warband members, and the maturity of the writing. Neither of these things really came out at me during the Norn story arcs, and I think part of that is because the only common element in those arcs is Eir. I hate to say it, but Eir isn’t an especially interesting character because she has no real personality. She easily gets drowned out in that regard in comparison to the much more colorful and varied cast she’s surrounded by.

Seeing as the warband members were a huge part of what made the Charr story so effective, I find myself saddened that the idea of companions was scrapped so early in development. Not only would that have done a lot to help the disjointed feel of the story arcs by having another common presence, but it would have also brought back another feature I just adored from Nightfall/Eye of the North.

I’d definitely agree that charr have the best story, at least until you join an order. I initially intended to go human after launch. But then I made a charr during beta, and I was so impressed with the story that I ended up maining charr after launch.

However, I can’t say that I’m that impressed after having progressed through the whole thing. What we have in this game is about 30 levels of personal story, and 50 levels of impersonal story. It’s a joke in my guild now… “You’re going to do your personal story? You mean your impersonal story?” I was pretty disappointed to learn by level 30, I had almost the same story as everyone else in my guild, and by level 50, we were all the same.

A charr is supposed to always be fighting alongside their warband, but I never get to fight with them again, only see them in my personal instance… but at least I get to see them, unlike Rytlock (more on him later). I would have loved to have more involvement with charr society rather than jumping into the order and the Pact so soon. I wouldn’t have minded joining an order and forming the Pact if it was later in the story, as I know the Elder Dragons are the focus… I just really wish I could have stuck around the Citadel for longer. I liked being called centurion. It’d have been awesome to make tribune.

Rytlock was an awesome mentor, and I felt like he really had my back as opposed to Logan, who asked me if I wanted go leave my friend Quinn to die in order to help the city (something that the Seraph should easily be able to do themselves). I’m sad that I can never find Rytlock around anymore since he’s permanently on temporary leave from his office, and I’m also sad that your mentors don’t recognize you in dungeons, because that’s your only opportunity to see them after joining an order. It’d be nice to at least see a “hey, centurion” or something from Rytlock when you talk to him in a dungeon. Same goes for the other races and their mentors. It’s like none of them have ever seen you at all, which isn’t true.

Another thing… when I played my human’s personal story up to like level 20 where they cut you off, I expected more after beta. I figured that since my lost parents were spies, they wouldn’t actually be dead, and I would find them alive later somewhere. But nope. Time to join the order and forget all about them. Meh.

I was disappointed about the impersonal story at first, but I don’t really think too much of it now because I shouldn’t have expected too much out of an MMO’s story. I’m sure a lot of work went into the personal story and I appreciate that, but it could have been better. I guess for next time, those are my thoughts.

If I could ask one thing, though… please put Rytlock back in his office after the player defeats Zhaitan. ;( He sends us mail saying he’ll keep in touch, telling us that we’re good friends… and then he disappears, on temporary leave forever.

Even though the war with the dragons is the main storyline, and unavoidable overall, it would have been nice to be able to stick with my “home” team somehow or return to them. I had the most enjoyment/love for the personal story when it revolved around my home-town areas, Medium enjoyment where things began to splinter off into different choices (whispers, priory, vigil), and the least enjoyment when things got “serious” and all three factions were brought together under Trehearne’s management.

I picked my race because they intrigued me. I love the cities, the cultural flavor, and the racial quirkiness. I became cozy, happy and comfortable just being a citizen and seeing all the facets of my race’s culture. It would be fantastic to have a diplomatic side to the personal story, that lets us choose to dive further into local politics, interacting with secret societies, breaking up conspiracies, hidden agendas and skull-duggery (perhaps even with twists depending on our charisma, ferocity, or dignity levels). As the story progresses perhaps we gain prestigious positions within our head of government or even become an ambassador for our race instead of running off to get ourselves a dragon head on a platter.

Issues with the personal story, just based on my opinion, which has resulted in what may be a sleepy clusterduckie but I don’t get time otherwise.

1. I feel as though the most enjoyable parts of the story are pre-pact; you aren’t sure where you’re going or what story you’re going to get for the most part. I wish this part had been longer, e.g doing missions with your sister, doing minor missions for Thackeray, getting drawn into the Vigil War Machine, more spying and subterfuge for Whispers folks. I feel as though these parts of the story get absolutely rushed so badly, you don’t end up with a connection to the organisation that your character is meant to choose, imo. I would much rather have the option to do lots of side stories and then have the choices made in those affect the main story. Or even have those side stories be optional and you choose when to advance the main plot, e.g elder scrolls style.

2. What I have a massive problem with is that none of the choices are meaningful. There isn’t a chance for failure and you can essentially guess the path you’ll take, an example of this being-

-You choose the ‘majority’ option in all three of the human stories and everything works out fine, minus a one character death in one story which there needs to be more of – a risk, an impact. If you choose the minority (your friends), it results in the city being fine. There isn’t a long lasting effect, you aren’t known as the hero who chooses their friends and isn’t trustworthy enough to save a city – you get regarded as being just the same. In a similar fashion, if you choose to save your city, the relatives of your friend don’t give you consequences that could affect your story.

-In the next bit of the story, you ALWAYS know that you’re going to end up in Kessex attempting to save children, you’re always up against Kellach. Why can’t one set of options branch out into a different story? The story is terrifically bland because it really is so predictable. Afaik, every bit of this bit ends up with you in the throne room… saving Jennah. No matter what the text says. You don’t try to cut him off elsewhere and succeed, resulting in saving a village/town in his path, etc.

-Ditto for the bits leading up to Claw Island. You will always lose your assigned BFF and then it feels forgotten, you could pack a horrific emotional punch by say, having a timed quest to rescue Tybalt who has managed to survive but with severe injuries/mental scarring, if you succeed, you keep him (or such, a happier ending), if you fail, you arrive to find his defenses down and it could result in burying your friend or losing their body to Orr. The emphasis here is to give the player an emotional punch in the face.

-Trehearne always turns up and I actually loathe him. It’s the Trehearne show, ya’ll. He has never even been mentioned as a famous scholar on Orr, he just gets jetted into your story and suddenly becomes the leader of the pact with very little character development. Combine this with a lack of humour, a boring accent (similar to my own!), a lack of feeling and growth of your characters bond with him.. It leaves much to be desired and feels a bit stilted, especially some of his generic insecure-hero-but-always-succeeds.

-Side characters are more interesting than some of the main characters, e.g the group of soldiers in Mount Maelstrom, your faction buddy, etc. They have humour, they feel more real – and just as the Destiny’s Edge story gets interesting/Logan becomes more interesting, he runs off. Bad Anet. Don’t drop character relationships like that.

3. Basically, I feel as though the story needs a tighter focus on the emotional side of story telling and the ability to roll a generic human and have their story be drastically different. You may always end up fighting Zhaitan but why are the main plot points the same? I feel as though what was promised was misleading. My character has no impact and none of the choices matter because I arrive at Kessex, at Queen Jennah’s room, Mount Maelstrom, etc every time.

4. Longer story. I want more. I love the traditional RPG hack n’ slash feel of the stories.

5. Can we please, please have the option to choose a voice for our character? Or even an age? I don’t know if this is possible but being called ‘young’ as an elderly wizard would be quite disconcerting and throws you out of the story, hehe.

6. Some class/race combinations make NO sense, e.g Asura have the engineer stereotype which is a bit crap when you want to be an Asura guardian. I think human engineer is another one that I have seen mentioned as not gelling. So basically, too much reliance on exaggerated stereotypes.

7. Lack of PC development. My character never advances beyond the same character she was at level 3. It seems a bit odd and I don’t know how you can fix it without redoing lots of diaglogue.

Sorry for ramble, is late. Thank you.

Points that stood out to me as needing improvement:

• I wanted more interaction with my racial mentors. As a Norn, Eir didn’t feel like much of a character. I gather that she was the leader of Destiny’s Edge, and she made some decisions that lead towards some deaths, but in my story all I got was her moralizing at me and complaining about being friendless and lonely. Maybe have some “mentor missions” that everyone can do to learn more about their mentor. Give us some insight into who this character is, and have them confront difficult problems. If Eir is reluctant to lead again because of what happened last time, put her into another situation where she has to make a difficult decision and breaks down and my player character snaps her out of it. Have her confide in my character. Flesh out her history — does she have a lover, was she a great warrior, is her family dead? What’s up with her ice carvings?

• My Norn felt like a child in an adult’s body sometimes. I’m a grizzled adult Norn yet I’m being taught these incredibly simplistic morality lessons. At the end of the early quest series we have a little “what did we learn here today?” moment about knowing when to fight or honoring the ancestors or whatever. It feels like my guy is a five year old in an adult’s body sometimes, running around shouting things like I AM THE MASTER OF LIFE and getting lectured about being a good person. I get that this is part of the Norn’s flavor, being He-Man or She-Ra running around drinking and boasting, but there’s a way to do it that doesn’t make them feel childish. For the record I thought the “Dude where’s my tank” quests were hilarious — comedy is GREAT and some of the high points of the game are comedic, but my character shouldn’t feel like a child. Unless they’re Sylvari of course, in which case they are kinda full grown children.

• The Pre-Order storylines felt a bit logically inconsistent. You’ll get a choice like “Should we have the Priory rescue the children, or have the Vigil protect the city?” and I’m thinking “Why are these mutually exclusive?” It doesn’t make sense. With a little modification though, it can become “Who do you want to go with?” rather than “Which one should we do?”

I should mention some good points too, because there’s a lot of them!

• Ambient dialogue in cities and quests. I can’t praise this enough. The random people you can talk to and the random conversations you listen in on are great. The event dialogue is great. One part that really stood out to me is when Destiny’s Edge meets up again, the children when you first enter do a hilarious scene where they play pretend as members of Destiny’s Edge, but it’s also catching you up on the history of the group. This was awesome. In general the text conversations from talking to people in instances were more informative than the actual cutscene dialogues.

• A lot of the mini-storylines were pretty cool too, and the choices give you some fun variation in gameplay. I enjoyed most of the mini-plotlines: my human noble politicking, lost parents or sister, drunken Norn fiasco, Asura invention gone awry, and the Sylvari’s “Act with caution” storyline. Aside from logical inconsistencies, I really liked the pre-Order storylines for all the races I’ve tried too — the setup where you pick a faction to follow for each mission is a great way to get you familiar with them before you choose them. I liked the variation in gameplay from my choices.

• The main cast is pretty good in general, and some of the supporting characters are GREAT. I like Zojja, Caithe and Rytlock a lot. I don’t even mind Logan that much — he wears some very apparent flaws on his sleeves but at least it makes him a character. Some of my favorites were supporting characters though. I wanted to interact with the leader of the Queen’s personal guard and my sleazy noble buddy more. Tybalt is amazing and hilarious. I loved when my character’s voice actor was audibly slurring his words after the drinking contest and the person he was saving was scoffing at him for her drunken rescue.

Basically you have some amazing writers, but it seems that something in the way that you structured your writing team for the main storyline made it fall a bit flat for me.

I think trying to merge all five race’s stories into one was a huge mistake on the part of the writers. Even If we all end up in more or less the same spot, each race (if not each race’s background facts) ought to have been done individually.

I have a level 80 guardian, and I just haven’t progressed the story since hitting the 75-80 zone in Orr. I’m actually very close to facing off against Zhaitan, etc etc, but I just don’t feel compelled to… which is a shame, he’s the big bad, after all.

There are a few reasons. Sure the voice acting can be a little emotionless and wooden, the timing can be off (seriously, interruptions that have a time delay aren’t interruptions).

The main reasons however are two fold;
The story cutscenes take me away from the action and become contextless. “We need to storm the lighthouse!”… which lighthouse? Where? Show me the objectives. I loved that about GW1. DEs do a great job of making me feel like part of an event, whereas the main event, the story, I feel terribly disconnected from.

The second issue is pacing and place. I know the “You’re the hero of everything!” line has been taken by so many RPGs, but ultimately I got bored of playing toy commander. I was treated no better than a foot solider. Often given orders by NPCs i’d just met with “ranks” lower than mine. In the end choices didn’t matter; I felt like I was just choosing who was going to boss me around next, as opposed to how I wanted to take the fight to Zhaitan.

At the end of the day the technical stuff can be improved; delays addressed, VO done differently, but the disconnect between the world and the story is what really hurts IMO. It doesn’t matter if some story elements are a little weak if they were presented better.

As a Charr, I went with Ash Legion and Honorless Gladium.
I can say that while I didn’t particularly feel very sneaky as Ash Legion, the story was serviceable enough. It wasn’t bad, and there were some fun missions, like disguising yourself as a Flame Legion. In general the whole ‘building your warband’ thing was a really good touch, and the only disappointment is that I wish ALL of my warband was in every mission, instead of it usually being Dinky, sometimes with one or two of the others.

Honorless Gladium was really good. Good voice acting, hard decisions, and while it would be nice to have a little bit of failure available as a player (every choice is the right choice), it had a great tone to it. The only disappointment is that my dad said he’d catch up with me later and… he never does. I was expecting him to show up again late in the personal story or something.

I’ve also done Sylvari from 1-20, doing the White Stag storyline. Apparently this is the best early Sylvari story, and I liked it because Gavin was legitimately an interesting character. It’s kind of a shame you never get to see ‘another Gavin’ if you catch my drift, and the rest of the Nightmare Court are apparently all complete jerks at best, and depraved sadists at worst.

I hear tell that ‘where life goes, so too should you’ is the best second option, but I didn’t pick that one.

EDIT:
Something I liked about the Charr story as opposed to the 50+ story. As a Charr, my rank matters. I order people around, but those above me give me missions. There’s a clear chain of command to follow, and my Charr isn’t afraid to both use that, and is responsible enough to follow it.

Meanwhile, later in the story, being ’Trahearne’s second in command’ actually means ’Trahearne’s Errand Boy’ and being given orders by random order members.

For me, the worst part of the Human and Norn stories is that the main characters just feel like total do-gooder wusses. There is no “renegade” sort of route. Even if you choose something like Street Rat and Ferocious, you’re some happy pleasant do-gooder. It just feels bad.

I remember this one Norn story where I actually listened to a guy threaten to kill me that had killed a bunch of people in some cave, and then told him some sappy heroic do-gooder line about how I wasn’t going to kill him or some nonsense.

I just really miss traditional RPG story telling where you can actually have that “bad a__” (p.s. someone wanna tell me why ‘bad’ + a 3 letter word for donkey is censored?) kind of feel to a character if you want to go that route, rather than being locked into a total do-gooder no matter what you choose. It just feels like even if there are 3 options, right now all they really do is say something a different way without any real effect.

Evil Neato.2470:

For me, the worst part of the Human and Norn stories is that the main characters just feel like total do-gooder wusses. There is no “renegade” sort of route. Even if you choose something like Street Rat and Ferocious, you’re some happy pleasant do-gooder. It just feels bad.

I remember this one Norn story where I actually listened to a guy threaten to kill me that had killed a bunch of people in some cave, and then told him some sappy heroic do-gooder line about how I wasn’t going to kill him or some nonsense.

I just really miss traditional RPG story telling where you can actually have that “bad a__” (p.s. someone wanna tell me why ‘bad’ + a 3 letter word for donkey is censored?) kind of feel to a character if you want to go that route, rather than being locked into a total do-gooder no matter what you choose. It just feels like even if there are 3 options, right now all they really do is say something a different way without any real effect.

Charr is a LITTLE bit better about that. It’s never about being a hero or a good guy, it’s about doing your duty.

Devildoc.6721:

Evil Neato.2470:

For me, the worst part of the Human and Norn stories is that the main characters just feel like total do-gooder wusses. There is no “renegade” sort of route. Even if you choose something like Street Rat and Ferocious, you’re some happy pleasant do-gooder. It just feels bad.

I remember this one Norn story where I actually listened to a guy threaten to kill me that had killed a bunch of people in some cave, and then told him some sappy heroic do-gooder line about how I wasn’t going to kill him or some nonsense.

I just really miss traditional RPG story telling where you can actually have that “bad a__” (p.s. someone wanna tell me why ‘bad’ + a 3 letter word for donkey is censored?) kind of feel to a character if you want to go that route, rather than being locked into a total do-gooder no matter what you choose. It just feels like even if there are 3 options, right now all they really do is say something a different way without any real effect.

Charr is a LITTLE bit better about that. It’s never about being a hero or a good guy, it’s about doing your duty.

‘Duty’ is something that should apply heavily to humans as well, though for some strange reason the charr have shifted from being one thing to something completely different and thus humans are shoved into the boring trope of being the eternal victims who love Queen Jennah.

Here are my thoughts on all of this:

The main story is so much more of you doing menial tasks for random people with the end goal of defeating a dragon. There is very little true story telling and very little backing. Compare this to GW1. In Prophecies you learn so much while doing the missions. For example, you learn about the searing while playing. You get lore behind Stormcaller and why it helps you fight the Charr. You get background on the Dwarves. Then you are introduced to the White Mantle and through that you are given information on lore before meeting Vizer where you then start to learn about the Mursaat and then finally the Titans as everything is tied together. In GW2 you learn that dragons are bad, dragons are bad and dragons are bad while playing the personal story. WAY to much of the background of the world is found through second hand conversations or obscure DEs or hearts.

The story telling and writing behind the original game was much stronger than it is here, and its truly disappointing playing through GW2 as a GW1 player hoping that more information is going to be revealed only to have very little lore given. Even in Orr… the most revered location of the GW franchise… we get NO information on the gods, the city or really anything while doing the missions.

Summary: To much hunting for very little and not well written lore in GW2…

Evil Neato — oh man, I really remember that Norn storyline bit, with the guy you don’t kill. It’s so much worse if you’re playing a female Norn, because he throws in some “get back in the kitchen” rhetoric, and I just. I have seldom wanted to slaughter an NPC more. Steelbane, maybe. Yet my Snow Leopard mesmer /lets the guy go,/ specifically so that he can tell the rest of them that I’m coming?! Insert shriek of fury here.

Garenthal.1480:

Devildoc.6721:

Evil Neato.2470:

For me, the worst part of the Human and Norn stories is that the main characters just feel like total do-gooder wusses. There is no “renegade” sort of route. Even if you choose something like Street Rat and Ferocious, you’re some happy pleasant do-gooder. It just feels bad.

I remember this one Norn story where I actually listened to a guy threaten to kill me that had killed a bunch of people in some cave, and then told him some sappy heroic do-gooder line about how I wasn’t going to kill him or some nonsense.

I just really miss traditional RPG story telling where you can actually have that “bad a__” (p.s. someone wanna tell me why ‘bad’ + a 3 letter word for donkey is censored?) kind of feel to a character if you want to go that route, rather than being locked into a total do-gooder no matter what you choose. It just feels like even if there are 3 options, right now all they really do is say something a different way without any real effect.

Charr is a LITTLE bit better about that. It’s never about being a hero or a good guy, it’s about doing your duty.

‘Duty’ is something that should apply heavily to humans as well, though for some strange reason the charr have shifted from being one thing to something completely different and thus humans are shoved into the boring trope of being the eternal victims who love Queen Jennah.

Well duty is a little different when you’re in the military, which Charr are ALL military.

Humans are all civilians.

They may have a “civic duty” to their queen but that USUALLY isn’t so rigidly defined beyond paying your taxes. The fact that the queen asks private citizens to do duties is a little wonky, to be honest.

Charr receiving orders to go here and do this.. totally fits in that they do what they’re ordered to do, they’re soldiers. You do your duty or military discipline falls apart, and without discipline the entire military collapses.

So when you get ordered to go arrest your own father, you go and arrest your own father.

You’re not doing “the right thing” all the time in that situation, and you’re not always a hero.

BobbyStein.2315:

The writing team as an entity didn’t write or design the personal story content.

Ah, yes, I had a feeling that the personal stories hadn’t been written by the same people as the (generally excellent) open-world scripts.

The second part of my theory is that the personal stories were all written by James Cameron.

I want to say I agree with the majority of feedback here. The story needs more depth. I would be fine with only 20 steps to my story if they were 20 fantastic steps. Others have gone into it in detail, so I’ll leave it at that. My biggest ‘beef’ with the story in general is that it is so segmented. At least for the humans/Orders/Pact story each one is almost completely separate from the others with little to no overlap or recall. With gate and waypoint travel it makes no sense that my human character wouldn’t return home and interact with Petra/Faren/Quinn through all of level 30-80 story. It makes no sense that once I am recruited to the Pact my Order just falls off the face of the planet.

While I think the writing quality could improve for future expansions, in order to improve what is there now, I feel that the addition of mini personal story content is needed. Mini stories don’t need to be cut scenes or voice acted, they could be just text box choices that let you explore the world a bit more.

Home Instance Importance
Available right from the first time a player enters their home instance should be a series of mini quests that let them explore the history of Destiny’s Edge, the Elder Dragons, and their relationships with the NPCs around them. The story is thrown at you in a lot of different directions and this would give players a chance to ‘get to know’ the world and add depth to the relationships that are present.

Add some repeatable quests in your home instance. Keep the Salma District clean by taking out local thugs or volunteering at the orphanage/hospital, or helping Petra and Andrew run their bar! A simple repeatable quest in your home instance would give you a reason to come back and add meaning to the area for you as well as strengthening the relationship between PC and NPC characters.

The Orders of Tyria
Choosing your Order determines a large chunk of story, but after that ‘arc’ is done, it’s like the Order just dies out. Just because the Pact has been formed doesn’t mean these Orders are standing by doing nothing. The Headquarters of your Order should offer a daily mission. You’re a trusted member who has proven yourself invaluable. You should feel that way.

Do some reconnaisance for the Order of Whispers. Scout the Orrian coastline for the Vigil. Recover an artifact for the Priory. Involve the NPCs that we’ve forged relationships with to create a stronger and more meaningful bond.

The addition of mini missions that are completely optional and just lets you explore some characters and aspects in more depth. This would
- add repeatable content for all levels
- add importance and depth to previous choices while keeping them relevant
- add continuity between branches without editing the personal story

I mostly agree with the feedback throughout this thread, so I thought I’d offer some of my own. Some of my opinions on storylines are not exactly too positive, but bear with me please.

I first started playing as a Norn Guardian because the celtic / nordic aesthetic was pleasing to me. Unfortunately, my character from the get-go felt like a dumb child with huge ego issues. He was like Thor in the movie, only less witty and more blurry. I thought: well, this seems heavily based on Thor, maybe he’ll grow out of it. The “I become a hero at level 1” actually made me try another story arcs (I later came back to him, so I’ll continue on the norn). After completing all the story arcs, I think they all feel insignificant, disjoined and boring. The biggest thing my character achieved throughout his whole life was becomming “The Slayer” at level 1 (which I presume enables NPCs to talk to me without using my name – I understand the intent, but execution is really poor). My character hasn’t grown up. He’s just as childish in his actions and desires as he was on level 1. I tried different stories and from all of those I must say I only remotely enjoed the lost heirloom arc. It sounded at least remotely as something I’d really want to do instead of being Eir Stegalkin’s second pet.

So I tried human. Well, these were a bit better, but the “level 1 hero syndrome” in which all you have achieved in your whole life was on level 1 was still present. I disliked the noble storyline as it was poorly written, disjoined and it felt more like “Logan can’t do his job so I’ll do it for him”. That may be due to poor voice acting on human male, but I also had the notion that this story was intended for children. No meaningful decisions, black and white clear-cut villains and heroes four-colour superhero style. I liked Countess Anise – mostly because I knew what “Exemplar of the Shining Blade” means. So I tried the “Streetchild”. That story arc felt so much better, like it was written by an entirely different team. Logan was much cooler, choices were meaningful (I spent a few minutes thinking if I want to save Quinn or stop the poisoning). It had a clearly-cut villain, gray characters (Riot Alice) and was overall a much better experience. But then it ended and I moved into “your unknown parents” storyline. Noone knew them, yet White Mantle could find me. My parents were spies, but noone bothered to look after me. I know that this arc was ment to fit all three origins with significant social class differences (low-life streetchild, a commoner and a noble), but the execution was really poor. If I were a noble, it’d fit better (friends of parents put me in a noble family I guess), but I never considered making a noble of uknown heritage (isn’t nobility a trait to be born with?). But hey, if my parents loved me so much and their friends looked out after me, why did my character end up on the streets. To be protected? That failed – White Mantle found me easily.

Now, moving on to something more positive – the Charr. Well, this story is simpyl great. The “title placeholder” for your characters name feels good, the “1st level hero syndrome” is not felt that much and the story is cohesive, well-written and interesting. I played all three legions with all three father stories just to see them because they were so well done. NPCs were awesome, each in their own way (Ryloc being voiced by Urdnot Wrex helps a lot). I felt my choices mattered and that I was really in command of something.

To sum up: I can’t fight the notion that Norn and Human stories (aside from Streetchild arc) were written for children. Not 14-16 year olds (I played Fallout I when I was 14 and I enjoed the story) – I think the target demographic was more like 9-12 yo or even less. On the other hand, Charr storyline (and Streetchild arc) were radically different and much more mature.

I never considered playing a Charr before that – but the norn story made me hate my character for being so childish and egoistical (even for an archetypical nordic / celtic guy) – and he didn’t grow up at all. I also couldn’t really feel the human because he was being so generic and blurred – I didn’t think I’ve acomplished anything at all. On the other hand, I grew to love my Charr because of his story.

So I think the human story is ok – if you play a human for his generic looks in armor it can be fine to just skim through the story and be ok with it. On the other hand, norn story can make you hate norn. Charr story acomplishes it’s goal – it makes you enjoy your choice of race and origin.

I hope my post doesn’t come up as too negative, it’s just the disparity in quality of the racial stories is … astounding, to say the least.

JNetRocks.3652:

Home Instance Importance
Available right from the first time a player enters their home instance should be a series of mini quests that let them explore the history of Destiny’s Edge, the Elder Dragons, and their relationships with the NPCs around them. The story is thrown at you in a lot of different directions and this would give players a chance to ‘get to know’ the world and add depth to the relationships that are present.

Add some repeatable quests in your home instance. Keep the Salma District clean by taking out local thugs or volunteering at the orphanage/hospital, or helping Petra and Andrew run their bar! A simple repeatable quest in your home instance would give you a reason to come back and add meaning to the area for you as well as strengthening the relationship between PC and NPC characters.

I love this idea. And what would make it shine even more is if, during the repeatable quests, you get face time with your “childhood friend,” where you get to discuss current details of your personal story with them, and get their spin on the entire situation. You know, like two friends just catching up and sharing their thoughts with one another.

Greyfeld.7104:

I love this idea. And what would make it shine even more is if, during the repeatable quests, you get face time with your “childhood friend,” where you get to discuss current details of your personal story with them, and get their spin on the entire situation. You know, like two friends just catching up and sharing their thoughts with one another.

Exactly! Even if it was entirely through text dialogue and not voiced, I think it would make it feel like a real friendship rather than just a temporary NPC that you can forget about as soon as you get past a certain point.

1-30: I have only played Human and Norn so far. I found the human one pretty decent. I like the political intrigue of it all. I was disappointed that most of the Norn choices were “something bad happened because I am an alcoholic.” Makes the Norn not seem very capable whereas the humans are dealing with big social issues. Which is sad cause the Norn are my favorite race.

Oh and spoilers . . .

30-50: Played Order of Whispers and part of Durmond Priory. I don’t much care for the priory. And Sieran (spelling?) I found fairly annoying and far to perky. But maybe that’s just because I played priory after the Order of Whispers story . . . so. much. fun.

I honestly played these quests back to back to back because I couldn’t wait to see what happened and to hang out with Tybalt (yes, I said hang out (more spoilers) When he died at Claw Island I was like . . . :O And honestly was pretty sad/mad.

If you secretly bring Tybalt back and pretend he miraculously made it, I wouldn’t be disappointed. Do it . . . I’ll wait here.

50+ Honestly I was kinda still mad that Tybalt wasn’t gonna be in my story so these didn’t seem as fun. Kinda depressing, difficult and well, I don’t care for Trahearne. His character has very little charisma/charm/more than one dimension.

So to sum up . . .

Like:

Intro story quests are light hearted and fun.

Order of Whispers is insanely fun. Let me run missions with my buddy Tybalt, and I’ll be here awhile.

I actually quite liked the cinematic style and voice acting (for most characters).

Dislike:

Trahearne, and the fact that he is 20 levels of my story, and I feel like my character has no emotional bond with him whatsoever cause he is a monotone personality-less character.

The fact that my character was very cavalier about the death of her partner. I felt like there was very little mourning. When people gave her condolences she was like, “yeah he’s dead, move on already.” “Ummmm, but he died an hour ago.”

I like a little light hearted fun mixed in with my undead slaying, so I felt one or two missions where I wasn’t being ambushed by undead would have really been ok. Really. : ) Like when I thought I was simply delivering a message to a widow and BAM, undead ambush.

Overall though, I like it, keep up the good work.

Only thing that gets to me is the Norn PS dialogue … the dialogue of both the character and Eir are so … jeuvenile and cliched it hurts sometimes.

I mean we all “hate on Logan”, but at least he had an identifiable emo personality.

Lack of continuity is a big issue as it currently stands. We need some characters to be with us from 1-80, and others can come and go in the storyline. Characters shouldn’t just disappear without explanation.

The Charr warband is a nice start, but we need those elements used across the entirety of the personal storyline. Otherwise, how will we care about them if most of them are only around for 2-3 events? Longevity on NPCs allows us to interact with them, build relationships with them, care about them . . . and through that, care much more strongly about the storylines that involves them as well.

BobbyStein.2315:

ZetaStriker.9142:

Lack of continuity is a big issue as it currently stands. We need some characters to be with us from 1-80, and others can come and go in the storyline. Characters shouldn’t just disappear without explanation.

The Charr warband is a nice start, but we need those elements used across the entirety of the personal storyline. Otherwise, how will we care about them if most of them are only around for 2-3 events? Longevity on NPCs allows us to interact with them, build relationships with them, care about them . . . and through that, care much more strongly about the storylines that involves them as well.

100% agree.

Story spoilers

. And for what purpose? Just to impact me emotionally? Well sir, you did it.

I found that the Human story from 1-30 was good but then the guy I had been working with all those levels, Logan. Just disappears really and only sends my little love letters every so often. I haven’t finished my story yet however so maybe I’ll get a surprise visit?

Not only continuity, but actually having the characters matter in the context of the narrative. Just plopping a NPC next to us for one or two “[F] Talk” prompts with unvoiced dialogue is NOT the solution. Where did so-and-so go should not just degenerate into an easy to place text prompt here and there to buff out continuity problems. I mention this because I know how you do. I know how you do, ANet.

You really need to respect your universe and writing. You certainly don’t right now. It’s obvious no one loves this universe as their own creation in your offices. Or if they do, your process isn’t conductive to creating a strong narrative with endearing, memorable characters with a central theme. Things like the dialogue “A and B” cutscenes (which many warned you about and expressed disappointment in well before even the betas) to the partitioned storyline, everything was set up as part of a formula to deliver features of a video game rather than to deliver a story. That’s what I sense when I play through GW2. It’s an engineered experience, not a provocative one.

Nebilim.5127:

Story spoilers

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

You killed my Sieran

. And for what purpose? Just to impact me emotionally? Well sir, you did it.

It honestly missed the mark for me. Not everything needs to be grandiose, with significant build-up and fanfare, I know… But the way this was handled, and how quickly it seems to have been forgotten/pushed aside just made it lose any real impact it should have had.

My thought at that point was basically Seriously? That's what you wanna do? Get rid of the only interesting character you've introduced in such a dull way? Brilliant! :-/

I think the biggest problems (well, aside from the fact that the whole event seemed extremely contrived and unnecessary) were my character’s complete lack of personality/ability to emote¹ and the fact that it was just swept under the rug so quickly with Gixx even making lame ‘jokes’ in the next mission (uggh… that mission…)

¹Seriously, she seems like someone playing a VR game, only ‘acting’ like the main character to move things forward. Nothing seems to genuinely mean anything to her.

One thing that really got on my nerves is that if you come across a really deep, “solid” character, they die. You learn very fast that – unfortunately – most of the characters in PS are very plain and uninteresting, single-dimension and that interesting characters are rare and far between.

And they die. Because the whole extra effort of the team to create that depth was focused ONLY to have a bigger effect when they die.

Spoilers ahead!
I don’t want to hide half my post or every second sentence so please stop reading now.

Arda was in only 2 of my PS quests and the first time I spoke to her, I knew she will die.
It’s like giving her a red shirt! She was amazing, but the only reason she was made amazing is because the team wanted to “kill her off”. It’s actually quite sad. And lazy.
Orr is actually full of that, this story arch (cauldron) actually has it 2 or 3 times: the scared Asura and the so high held Norn hunter you get to hear about? Guess.

On a side note, I also find the human story line the most generic.
Norn is, at times, also pretty bad.
I wanted to play a “noble” Norm, much like I imagined Jora was. Getting drunk wasn’t an option, brawl also wasn’t an option, so I chose the heirloom. Only to learn this means my Norn is a stupid gambler who would gamble this – very important, apparently! – family heirloom.
Later you have to choose whether to destroy that heirloom (as it’s dangerous) or to keep it. And Eir insists on keeping it, because “it’s so important to your family and a legend and a legacy bla bla”. Well, if I agreed to keep it, the character would fall apart: if it was so important, I wouldn’t gamble it! Of and my ancestor is apparently a Norn hero, too. Makes no sense.

I also agree with whoever wrote that the “world” writing team done a much better job.
You get deeper, more defined and more interesting characters in the small event chains, seriously… and they don’t always die, which is nice, too.

As someone who has played the Sylvari story and a little of the Charr, a couple of easy improvements come to mind:

1. Link between stories more. For example, as a Sylvari, Branthyn is the Vigil recruiter, it would be cool to have her show up in Vigil missions, likewise for the other orders. Similarly, if I’ve spent 10-30 running around with Traherne, he probably doesn’t need to be reintroduced (i.e., dialogue should account for past choices, even if its only 2-3 lines different).

2. I feel like the Sylvari story needs to have some sort of depth. Like the Cycles didn’t seem to do much apart from introduce one character in one of the possible stories.

3. Male Sylvari… I’m not sure, but it just seems every male Sylvari character comes across as an annoying know-it-all. Traherne excluded, the male Priory recruiter and the twins in the “All Things Have a Right to Grow” story and even the PC at times comes across as insufferable know-it-alls, rather than genuinely curious or earnestly naive.

I’ll just echo what’s been said here: The biggest issues here are not the characters themselves. The biggest issue is continuity between storylines, and the second biggest issue is presentation.

For the human story, for instance

One thing that I would say severely cripples Guild Wars 2’s personal story, in my opinion, is how ArenaNet have based it largely upon templates. For example:

While I can speculate as to why they used these templates (most likely to speed up the process of creating the vast amount of story steps that are in GW2), I would urge you to not use these in future story steps – whether they be added in expansions or content updates. Please, come up with unique events and plots for every branch/chapter of the story, and, if necessary, reduce the amount of total branches/choices in order to make that happen. After all, what is the point of having so many choices in the game if they are all very similar due to these templates?

Very interesting thread! I’m particularly glad to see “official” replies.

BobbyStein.2315:

We’re in the process of analyzing the final version of the personal story, and looking at ways to improve the writing, voice acting, and overall presentation going forward. My team and/or I will likely be more involved in that regard.

Thanks for the compliments on the ambient and event dialogue. We worked hard on it.

It’s a well-earned compliment, I say.

And please look into the continuity issues that so many people have mentioned! I’m not that far into the story yet (my “main” has completed Battle for Claw Island), so I can’t comment on the whole thing, but by now I’m a bit afraid of continuing the story. Why? Because I fear having my enjoyment and immersion wrecked by having people I met and helped before treat me like a stranger, and seeing the earlier story arcs that I enjoyed so much get treated as if they never happened and never mattered.

I’m totally fine with “sharing the glory” and in fact much prefer it to being the only important and competent person in the whole bloody world, but continuity is utterly crucial for any story.

Anyway, my feedback to far:

1) More cultural storylines, please!

For the most part I really enjoy the initial parts of the story. They help to define and immerse myself in my characters’ culture, and that is exactly what I always wanted from a game that offers different species. Yes, some of the writing could be better and deeper. And yes, the “you’re such a special hero destined for greatness” song and dance gets really old (though GW2 isn’t even as guilty of it as some other games). But overall, during these acts of the story I really do feel as if my sylvari was a sylvari, my charr was a charr, etc., and that is great.

All that vanishes as soon as I join an order. There’s nothing whatsoever in any of the order-related missions I’ve done so far that made me feel like anything other than a generic, bland human-in-a-funny-suit. The distinct, defining, interesting aspects like the Dream and the Wyld Hunt, or the loyalty to my warband and Legion, are just gone. And that bites hard.

I understand one of the big themes of this game is putting aside differences for a greater goal or the world will die. That is great! But putting aside differences should not equal eradicating every recognizable cultural trait. What’s the point of crafting all these detailed cultures and backstories if it all goes away at level 30?

All in all, I’d much have preferred if the cultural storylines were the defining ones for the whole game, or at least for them to continue “on the side”.

(Split for length issues.)

(Continued.)

2) There are too many disposable NPCs.

In every story arc, we meet one or more characters who play a pretty important and active story for that arc. And just when I start to like them … poof, the story ends and I don’t see them again (though I hear some come back much later). This is exacerbated by the fact that each story arc is really only very short. The charr have the advantage of the warband adding at least some continuity — though not enough. Where were my ‘bandmates during Sins of the Father and the Dragon Crystal story? Euryale was there, but even when she says that it’s good to see the whole warband fighting together in Dragon Crystal … there was just her and me. No Elexus. No Fyon. And at the same time, the charr story is perhaps the worst example of disposable NPC syndrome since you only get to exchange like three words with each member of your warband during the tutorial, maybe you even miss them in the excitement, and then you learn that they all died while you weren’t looking. And these are supposed to be the best and closest friends my character ever had, the center of her existence, her family! How are we supposed to feel the impact of what would be the greatest horror for any charr if it’s all just hi-bye-dead?

I can only guess that due to the branching story arcs and some further choices that can be made within them, it would have been a pain to carry over all these people. But I think it would add a lot to the game. If we’re meant to care about an NPC, if our characters are supposed to care, then we need the chance to spend more time with them.

3) Where’s the emotion?

So far, my characters have shown a rather disturbing lack of emotion in situations that should be highly emotional. Maybe they agree with what I said above and just didn’t have enough time to get attached to anyone. :p But snark aside … it’s really immersion-breaking. My whole warband just got wiped out except for myself and my closest buddy, and on top of that some POS and his new cronies are blaming me for it and treating me like dirt? I’d expect shock, grief, rage, something! Instead, my character reveals that she’s actually a Vulcan spy in disguise by showing about as much of a reaction as a rock. It’s as if her warband, her family, didn’t matter to her at all. Another example: my Vigil mentor-turned-partner-and-friend just gave a moving farewell speech and made a heroic last stand so I could lead a ragged handful of survivors of our doomed mission to safety. And what did my character do? Nothing. She didn’t even say goodbye. She didn’t even thank him. She said nothing. Nothing at all. Almorra and Trahearne showed more emotion, however briefly, than my Vulcan sylvari did.

Dictating a player character’s emotional reaction is dicey, I know that, and in a pen&paper game it’s one thing that a GM should never do. GW2 does a lot of dictating already, though — all the cutscene dialog is automatic, the Charm/Dignity/Ferocity options show up rarely and have little impact. So if you’re going to pre-define my character for me, please make sure to include strong reactions when it’s called for. Doing a constant Spock impression isn’t a “neutral” or “default” reaction, and it’s not credible.

All that may sound a bit negative, but really — I do enjoy the story for the most part and the lore as well! I just crave more depth, more distinctiveness and more of a chance to really “bond” with my NPC buddies. So please view this as praise by way of constructive criticism.

The Charr storylines have been without a doubt the most entertaining and immersive, such a shame it all goes to pot once you leave your order. As was mentioned elsewhere, from feeling very much in control in your early life, post 50 everything feels identical. Frankly I would rather see the model flipped on its head, with fewer options at the start, branching out to more meaningful choices as you advance.

Back to the Charr though, everything is right with them; the characterisations, the voices, the stories, everything. I deliberately played the exact same story in beta and live because I enjoyed it so much (specifically Gladium father), I was so impressed that the game didn’t try to railroad my choices and actually let me decide something that felt pretty fundamental.

Unfortunately the earlier Charr stories make promises that simply aren’t delivered on later in the game. As the most heinous example I’ll put forward “Fixing Blame” which is railroading of the worst kind and an episode that I spent a long time trying to do the sensible thing but eventually caved even though I knew (and it was blatantly obvious) that it was the wrong thing to do. “Fixing Blame” is an example of how not to write an interactive story, the Charr cultural stories are a prime example of getting it right.

Devildoc.6721:

Somethng I mentioned back in Beta was that characters in Tyria don’t swear, and that always strikes me as odd when we’re talking about any kind of fiction. You show me an entire town where not one person ever swears in it.

It simply does not exist.

They might not swear using the words WE recognize as swearing, but in every language, every culture, there are “curse words” devised for the same purposes (expressing pain or anger/frustration/stress) that have the same taboo in their culture as any word replaced by “kitten” on these forums.

It seems… very unrealistic and unimmersive for Tyrians not to have such words or expressions.

The closest I’ve heard was “By Ogden’s Hammer! What savings!”

The Charr have several, mostly revolving around the word "burn, " the Sylvari have “brambles!” which makes me smile every time I hear it. I can’t bring to mind anything from the other cultures though, so your point is valid.

As an aside, and I think this was mentioned elsewhere; Logan has become something of a joke in my guild too. Perhaps you could adopt “Logan” or “Thackeray” as human expletives.