Warning: Some spoilers for the PS.
I thought of this while I was dealing with Malyck in my personal story on my sylvari alt. In it, I met Tiachren, and after we’d killed Ysvelta I found him by accident in Caithe’s home instance. He was mourning, clearly, and I could speak to him, too. I thought that it would be interesting if later on—or perhaps now—he would ask me for a favour so that he could feel better…or something along those lines.
Now, on my human main there were many characters who came through my personal story, only to disappear after completing a mission, never to be brought up again. For instance, we could mention Lord Faren, who was…quite a character. * ahem * I found him to be rather cliche and 2-dimensional, as he had very little personality outside of “I’m rich, you know.” Now, what if instead of just ignoring his presence for the rest of my life, he came to me to ask for help on a serious manner, one where he learns a very valuable lesson…maybe there is someone out there that isn’t impressed by his curse of riches and flat personality, and he is horrendously upset that there appears to be no way to get them to like him.
I could mention the same thing about Quinn. There is a point in your story in which he could either die, torn in pieces, at the hands of a bunch of jerks, or you could save him. I imagine that this situation would be absolutely traumatizing for Quinn if you saved him, and that could perhaps unlock a part in your story where you can talk to Quinn and learn about what happened to him after the incident. I mentioned only human characters here, that is because I am rather biased towards humans when I make characters :P However, I know that there are other characters who suffer this same fate and are not human-specific. They are all capable of having more interest developed towards them and not being forgotten later.
The key things I want to mention about these is that they would be optional. Yes, they would provide some sort of reward, but it would not be like the rewards we get in the main PS, and they would also be geared towards/themed based on what happened in the instance. As well, they would explore the character and give you an opportunity to develop a better relationship with their character (no, not necessarily a romantic one). They would be able to be completed at any point in time after “unlocking” them in your PS; therefore you could wait until you were level 70 after a level 20 story mission and still be able to start them.
Some of them would also not be available based on decisions you made in your story, or they would be changed. I would even go so far as to say that your choices in character creation could have the potential impact exactly what happens in the story, ignoring that you have to have certain choices for certain characters, anyway.
I am also going to address why I think that they could work for the design mechanics of GW2. I remember Anet specifying that they don’t want quests because they have no effect on the world, and that they can also provide a boring grind. I want to counter that by saying that these are different kinds of quests (I wouldn’t even call them quests; that’s just their term for this thread). They are different because they allow a growth of characters and story entirely outside of the main story without having to change the PS at all, and they would not be implementing a grind, only a few tasks. They have the potential for creative and engaging content that we don’t usually see in the story, examples being that instead of fighting off risen, you are hosting a party. Instead of protecting Fort Trinity, you are being your friend’s wingman. (For example, of course. I’m merely mentioning possibilities). Lastly, they would have an effect on the world, or at the very least, your character’s home instance. If you had to help someone grow a garden, it would slowly grow in your instance and you could harvest herbs and trees from it. The character’s interactions with you thereafter would be permanently changed.
To summarize, I would love the option of having a way of really interacting with characters outside of the PS when it is possible. Not a simple dialogue box, but a short story mission, one that is entirely optional and does not revolve around your story so that characters have relevance beyond three missions.
Title is in scare quotes because I don’t think they would be side quests, but at the
moment I can’t think of a better name.
I would like to take any suggestions or criticisms, too. Please tell me what you think! 