Guild Wars 2

The world of Guild Wars 2 is so detailed, it has a lot of potential. However, I’ve found that both the personal story, and much of the in-world content, is way too pleasant and sunny. As a result, the stories feel childish, unrealistic, and lacking in depth.

The world is being destroyed by dragons. Millions of people have died, and hundreds more are dying every day in open warfare. The land is plauged by the living dead, ghosts, and horrific mindless monsters who used to be your friends & loved ones. To top it all off, your respective race is torn by infighting and civil war. Issues such as roving gangs, corrupted power-holders, unethical torture, violence against women, and terrorism are rampant.

Despite this, the game goes along like a kid’s saturday morning cartoon. If people aren’t acting bright and happy, they’re either acting like mindless noble heroes (You and Trahearne), or throwing tantrums about hurt feelings (Destiny’s Edge). It all feels very superficial. I’m not saying the story should be grisly and depressing all the time, but it really ought to dig a little deeper into the darkness and emotion of Tyria.

Have you seen the Scar? It’s a pretty depressing to look at, and knowing that the land may never heal.

I will admit that the tone is a little off, but it’s hard to place a dark tone without over-doing it, and without under-doing it. I would hate this game if it was nothing but dark gritty edgyness like most Modern FPS. (Or the new Devil May Cry game aka Edgy May Cry.)

I would like to see more areas actually being effected by the dragons in later expansions. I can understand Zhaitan, because he never stepped foot out of Orr he only sent his armies to the mainland, but with other dragons. I would like them to have an effect on the world when they wake up.

We need evil races.

Nightmare Court/Inquest/Evil Norn/Ect Ect…

I agree. One thing that highlights how true this is sometimes is if you choose to side with the Durmand Priory and you get stuck under the leadership of that annoying woman. Seriously, she didn’t fit in with the game at all. I half expected her to be like “oh hi there risen corpse, how are you today?” during battle. I can't be the only one who was actually relieved when she died on claw island.

Your point might seem good at the moment but if you look at it, once they make the world darker its going to be to dark and you are going to want it to be more cheerful. The game would just be too depressing and with a depressed community it would really be a proper MMO.

You want dark places, you have Orr with its regions. Play there if you like but I prefer Queensdale and other cheerful, joyful and colorful zones. If these zones don’t fit for your style than there is The Secret World mmo just for your taste.

Because dark places are so awesome….No.Btw there’s enough dark ,gritty places imo,The balance between these types are fine as it is.Each map has great variety in detail and effects,no map looks the same.I think its all good as it is.If you want dark,gritty,go Orr and have fun.

Ok, i re-read your post and agree that the story is shallow and obviously filler.

All game stories lack in depth, compared to a half decent book or film.

Weindrasi.3805:

The world of Guild Wars 2 is so detailed, it has a lot of potential. However, I’ve found that both the personal story, and much of the in-world content, is way too pleasant and sunny. As a result, the stories feel childish, unrealistic, and lacking in depth.

The world is being destroyed by dragons. Millions of people have died, and hundreds more are dying every day in open warfare. The land is plauged by the living dead, ghosts, and horrific mindless monsters who used to be your friends & loved ones. To top it all off, your respective race is torn by infighting and civil war. Issues such as roving gangs, corrupted power-holders, unethical torture, violence against women, and terrorism are rampant.

Despite this, the game goes along like a kid’s saturday morning cartoon. If people aren’t acting bright and happy, they’re either acting like mindless noble heroes (You and Trahearne), or throwing tantrums about hurt feelings (Destiny’s Edge). It all feels very superficial. I’m not saying the story should be grisly and depressing all the time, but it really ought to dig a little deeper into the darkness and emotion of Tyria.

Yeah I hear what your saying I too wouldn’t mind place’s like Orr to have that cryptic,dark, spooky horror type atmosphere where at night the more creepier type creature’s come out to play, and place’s like Queensdale and other’s would have people running indoors cuz the vampires an werewolve’s an other undead thing’s are running about killing everything an anything that they encounter. but yeah I agree with ya saying.

Clockwork Cake.9138:

I agree. One thing that highlights how true this is sometimes is if you choose to side with the Durmand Priory and you get stuck under the leadership of that annoying woman. Seriously, she didn’t fit in with the game at all. I half expected her to be like “oh hi there risen corpse, how are you today?” during battle. I can't be the only one who was actually relieved when she died on claw island.

Completely off topic, but I absolutely DISAGREE! Compared to many of the characters in the game she was very well developed, and really grew on me. I was extremely sad to see her die.

As to the subject on hand, I think dark and grit has it’s places in the game, but I do not think it all needs to be that way.

Don’t worry, we’ll get to watch trahearne die someday.

I don’t know that I really agree with needing more “dark” places (we have enough edgelord stuff as is), but I can definitely say I’d like more “awe-inspiring” places. Orr comes very close to being like that, but I’m usually too distracted with trying to stay alive. Just as some examples (and I don’t mean to start anything here), some places that really made me feel hushed and in awe at just the vast implications of what was going on were Icecrown, Zul’Drak, Felwood, etc. I don’t know how, but those areas just make things feel so much bigger than yourself.

I feel the same way but not necessarily about the people like the npcs , altho there could be some darkness in the areas that are normally bright.

Like whatever happened to thieves in the city? Why can’t people get mugged in the alleyways? Where is that? No kingdom’s army of guards was ever that good that the alleyways were that protected. Even LOTRO had one guy that would attack people when they first arrived and went to the hunters lodge. Would love stuff like this to happen in the towns and be the hero that saves the day or the thief that gets the goods instead :P.

I also find it odd that my character has no mischievous choices. I am a thief….where is my sense of thievery? It’s like “I’m a thief but with values” that just doesn’t work. I don’t want to steal from the rich and give to the poor but I do want stealing. ???? no stealing from the rich not even anything that isn’t game breaking in towns to do like this. Where i sneak around climb up buildings get on the roof and invade a home to get things from a royal pain in the bu…. I mean royal Lord’s chest.

It is true OP this does seem like a saturday morning cartoon. There are no raids on the major cities, there’s some dissent amongst the Ebon Hawk folks but nothing beyond 2 hearts. There’s nothing going on it seems that would make it seem like a darker more foreboding place to live with the threat of the dragons around every corner. At least until you go to Orr, then it’s just annoying.

Hey, the ’90s called. They want their “Darker and Edgier” back.

Really, spend some time in Orr, and tell me it isn’t dark enough.

Clockwork Cake.9138:

I agree. One thing that highlights how true this is sometimes is if you choose to side with the Durmand Priory and you get stuck under the leadership of that annoying woman. Seriously, she didn’t fit in with the game at all. I half expected her to be like “oh hi there risen corpse, how are you today?” during battle. I can't be the only one who was actually relieved when she died on claw island.

Absolutely and utterly disagree. I loved her, she is better than Tybalt imo.

There is no need to make things darker than they are. A little darkness here and there is fine and it is there. Just because war is around life does not stop. War does not change the weather. Horrible things can happen on sunny days.

tigirius.9014:

I am a thief….where is my sense of thievery? It’s like “I’m a thief but with values” that just doesn’t work. I don’t want to steal from the rich and give to the poor but I do want stealing. ???? no stealing from the rich not even anything that isn’t game breaking in towns to do like this. Where i sneak around climb up buildings get on the roof and invade a home to get things from a royal pain in the bu…. I mean royal Lord’s chest.

They used the “thief” word to describe the mechanic of “taking things from foes and use it against it”. They wanted this mechanic in the game and had to figure out a name that fits it. Assassins or Ninjas couldn’t fit the description.

All professions have more or less the same skills with different animations but in general they are all the same. If you could “steal” things from NPCs or other things you describe, all other professions needed some similar skill too

I agree with this post. The whole world including ore could be darker.

*nights are way to bright
*Little lore or story to set the mood for why DE’s occurring.
*No blood or gore
*need more depressing and agree dialogue from NPC’s
*No crime element with in towns and cities
*lack of mature content

This post was really all about your personality. The people that said that it needs to be more dark probabbly dress in darker clothes then those who say that it shouldn’t its just the mental state of players considering this I say its fine as it is. It would also be pretty hard to change all of the colors from a sudden. I think what you meant was a different atmosphere.

Onshidesigns.1069:

I agree with this post. The whole world including ore could be darker.

*nights are way to bright
*Little lore or story to set the mood for why DE’s occurring.
*No blood or gore
*need more depressing and agree dialogue from NPC’s
*No crime element with in towns and cities
*lack of mature content

I think I disagree with you, and here’s why.
Make the night any darker, and it’s a little difficult to see, honestly.
If they make this game more bloody/gory, they have to change the rating from teen to mature. (And I can see they probably don’t want to do that with this game).
There are crime elements actually. Spies and sabotage. The human story line also has gangs in it.
…And the bit about mature content. Again, the game’s rating is Teen.

paragon.6543:

I think I disagree with you, and here’s why.
Make the night any darker, and it’s a little difficult to see, honestly.
If they make this game more bloody/gory, they have to change the rating from teen to mature. (And I can see they probably don’t want to do that with this game).
There are crime elements actually. Spies and sabotage. The human story line also has gangs in it.
…And the bit about mature content. Again, the game’s rating is Teen.

Are we playing the same game? I seriously think they probably added scattered lines like “ kitten your eyes!” just to push for a T rating for marketing purposes. As others have pointed out, this game is tamer than a lot of children’s cartoons. There are plenty of T-rated games with attacks that spray blood and plots that dwell on more mature themes. WoW isn’t exactly considered the pinnacle of gritty, but even it deals with stuff like sexual assault and torture.

That said, I don’t really care either way. Writing is not the game’s strong point. I suspect I’ll be disappointed no matter what tone they attempt to take with future content. If I had kids I’d probably want it to remain family-friendly so I could play with them, but since I don’t . . . Just keep the gameplay fun and I’ll be content.

Kinda related to this topic, what I would like is them to make nights darker. Right now there’s barely any difference of luminosity at all.

One thing was a little disappointing with personal story. You have sooo many options… but all of them are to be the good guy. Even if you are Brute Thief… Even if you are a Charr Warrior who overthrows a bad warband leader via murder you are still inherently a good guy doing good positive things. I wish there was a route for the meniacle and malicious maybe I like to play the hero but I also like to play the villain or at least be self serving.

They have the “personality” system but its not fully implemented. Maybe some future updates will focus on that. It will be like when you have full ferocity you will need to fight merchants so you can sell to them and when you are charming, the merchants in town will run to you. Hopefully we will see that in the future, but “blood and gore”? aren’t there too many games like this on all gaming platforms?

@Elspeth Tiriel: because Anet wants us to be the good guys, they want the good vs evil fight and they want US to be the good guys. It is a pretty basic choice of their game. If you want to be villain this is not the game.

@Onshidesigns: Gore has no place in this game, it just isn’t that kind of game. They should not change something so drastically after release when so many already have the game and enjoy it just the way it is. You might like gore, but others might hate it, as would I.

Maybe it could use more depth in the story and the characters, although imo there already is some depth, people just choose to not see it. Having depth is NOT the same as something dark though, things can get very dark and still lack depth and things can have loads of depth without getting dark.

Caedmon.6798:

Because dark places are so awesome….No.Btw there’s enough dark ,gritty places imo,The balance between these types are fine as it is.Each map has great variety in detail and effects,no map looks the same.I think its all good as it is.If you want dark,gritty,go Orr and have fun.

Ronah.2869:

You want dark places, you have Orr with its regions. Play there if you like but I prefer Queensdale and other cheerful, joyful and colorful zones. If these zones don’t fit for your style than there is The Secret World mmo just for your taste.

You’ve named the problem, actually. I don’t want them to change Queensdale or Divinity’s Reach—those places are amazing as they are. But Orr isn’t dark or scary at all. Orr is certainly an interesting map, but it feels more like a halloween theme park then a desolate zombie wasteland. I would love it if places like orr, the brand, and so on had a gritty, creeping horror feeling. Like I said, I don’t want ALL of guild wars 2 to be dark and depressing—but I would certainly like to see that in some places.

Elspeth Tiriel.9243:

One thing was a little disappointing with personal story. You have sooo many options… but all of them are to be the good guy. Even if you are Brute Thief… Even if you are a Charr Warrior who overthrows a bad warband leader via murder you are still inherently a good guy doing good positive things. I wish there was a route for the meniacle and malicious maybe I like to play the hero but I also like to play the villain or at least be self serving.

Completely agree. The “hero” storyline only fits my goody-goody characters. My grey-area characters, or my outright bad characters, really have no place in Guild Wars 2 and that’s a shame.

Tarvok.4206:

Hey, the ’90s called. They want their “Darker and Edgier” back.

Really, spend some time in Orr, and tell me it isn’t dark enough.

Alright, I will. :P Orr isn’t dark enough. See my comments above.

People have to be more cheerful when they’re fighting against an undead horde.
It’s how they make it through the day.

Plus, we have plenty of dark content between the Nightmare’s goal to corrupt all that is good, the amoral Inquest which will murder their own kind for science, and the undead legions of Zhaitan.

Just remember – This MMO is a fantasy. Not a horror.