Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

It’s not just the writing. It’s wackiness in general. For example:

some of the stuff you’re complaining about here isn’t actually writing.

Good thing I didn’t mention that at the very beginning of my post!

Orpheal, those two cinematics are/were the best cinematics I’ve seen ArenaNet produce. If anyone things otherwise, I would like to see one from Anet that they would say is better.

I wanted just to show from where anet was going away to what we sadly have now in GW2 in regard of story telling.
These 2 cinematics were made after the games were already released.
Its quite sad, that they weren’t part of the games, like starting cinematics once you start the game for the first time to bring the gamer into the right mood for the game.

Cinematics are much better for story telling, but I also know, that they take naturally alot more effort, than making some kind of lifeless 2D art animated a tiny bit.

This here is nothing against cinematics:

http://video.golem.de/games/5555/guild-wars-2-trailer-%28gamescom-2011%29.html
(Sorry for ther german site, couldn’t find any better)

Yes, that art stuff is pretty to look at (the beginning very everything is in that 2D Art and painted), with the right back ground music you can get also some kind of emotion into it, but when compared to a real cinematic, it just hasn’t quite of the punch you get from a 3D cinematic.

Anyway, GW2 would have been alot more better, if at least most of the scenes and the story telling would have had at least the same quality like this one trailer in regard of the nice painted 2D stuff, which they showed 2011 at Gamescom in my hometown Cologne in Germany

Not to bring more negativity into the mix (as always seems the case) But GW2 lacks definitive lore. It’s uncompelling for the most part.

They focused entirely on making the first 20 levels of Guild Wars 2 amazing, and the later game play got choked.

Look at how much time went into queensdale or Wayfarer, the beginning personal story is awesome. I enjoyed it. But it dwindles after that.

What I say is very much true. They even said, zhaitan ended up being rushed due to a intense crunch time.

The writing seems rushed, and a lot of the writing doesn’t seem to have the passion of a writer who is also deeply connected to it.

It’s like it’s now just becoming a “Job”

Its reminding me of what I think about my “Job”. I love what I do, and support the cause, but I don’t share the same personal connection as some. Seems like that is happening at Anet as well. Someone who is deeply connected to what they are doing, will put much more effort and passion into it, versus someone just trying to get the project done to move to the next.

A bit of irony is in the very title of the game…

“Guild wars 2” sans the guild wars…

It should be titled "Aftermath of the Guild Wars: The New Republic "

Shagaz.6209:

What I would change:
1. Villains. First, they are mostly evil for the sake of evil, power-hungry etc. Just look at the renegade factions:
-Flame Legion: a bunch of power-hungry fanatics.
-Sons of Svanir: a bunch of power-hungry fanatics.
-Inquest: a bunch of power-hungry evil geniuses.
-Nightmare: a bunch of power-hungry sadists.
-Bandits: while some fight for the cause, most are just power-hungry anarchists.
…..
6. When I learnt about the technology I thought it would be really cool that during those 250 years races of Tyria developed. But… it’s kinda dumb. Norn don’t use any technology still, humans are in a slightly better condition, charr have those tanks etc. but never use them and asura do 99% of the work with their deus ex machinas. And magic is shown as pretty useless. No powerful mages. Even Trahearne who is a powerful necromancer prefers running with a greatsword. He used his powers once and that’s all.

For the first part about the various enemy factions, I think you may have missed a little bit of a point. The individual groups do have their own motivations. While the minions of each group maybe be a bit cardboard, the actual organizations do have compelling motivations.

Flame Legion – They still old allegiance to their old gods, and the rest of the charr are heretics, especially considering that they are now allied with their old enemy, the humans, who took Ascalon from them so many years ago. Religious fanaticism can be powerful: just look at Westboro Baptist church.

Sons of Svanir – The norn were beaten back by the dragon, having many of their spirits of the wild killed in the process. So many of the norn began to see this dragon that was capable of fighting and slaying the spirits they so revere as the ultimate spirit with power over all others. So they worship him and are devoted to him as much as any norn is to their own patron spirit. So, in the name of Dragon they commit their crimes.

Inquest – The asura as a race value technology, advancement, and knowledge above all else, and while their actions can often be questionable, they still have the barest of moral restraints. The Inquest simply lack these restraints, and are unfettered by morals in their pursuit of knowledge. I do feel that the Inquest is represented poorly in game, but the idea behind them isn’t bad.

Nightmare Court – The Nightmare Court believes that their mother and source of life, the Pale Tree, has be turned and corrupted by the teachings of Ventari, and that the true nature of the Dream is Nightmare. Any actions or memories a Sylvari experiences is sent to the Dream, so the Court seeks to perform horrific acts against their own kind to send their own dark thoughts and the tortured thoughts of their victims back to the dream.

Bandits – Well… the bandits are just dumb. A bandit steals things, right? But often we find the bandits just doing things like burning down a bridge for no apparent reason and then standing around it, waiting for a player to assault them. And then they attack in waves upon waves to stop the repair of the bridge. What’s the point? They aren’t making any money from these actions, so why would they do them? All it is costing them are their lives. You would think that a ragtag bunch of bandits wouldn’t stick around and die for a cause, seeing as their primary motivation is greed, and they can’t exactly enjoy their spoils if they’re dead. Besides, literally everyone else in Kryta has better living conditions than they do: even the poor district has cute little cottage houses while the bandits live in caves. I guess crime really doesn’t pay.

The Separatists are a much more compelling human antagonist, especially since the human and charr political conflict has very little presence apart from the relationship between Rytlock and Logan and the passing presence in the Separatists. The part about them that I find weird is that they have no charr counterpart. You would think that there would also be some charr angry about the alliance, but you only find that on the human side. I guess humans are just more racist or something. Maybe they wanted to keep the charr villainous faction to just the Flame Legion, but they already have two bad humans factions – bandits and separatists – so I don’t see why that would have been an issue.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Nuka Cola.8520:

lol fps’s in general have waaaaay better story telling unless ‘fps’ title is CS to you. Just look at the latest such as Bioshock Infinite, Metro LL and so on. When was the last time an mmo had a story worth having a conversation with your buds? Never.

Way better?

Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Doom 2, Quake, Quake 2, and Quake 3. Any clones thereof (and there were a LOT) . . .

Sure there was story, but it really did boil down to “go and shoot stuff, make it to the end of the level, get the rocket launcher” more often than not. The first FPS I recalled which tried to do anything with story was Half-Life.

As far as MMO stories go? EverQuest at least tried to do something with a story, though it seems they threw in the towel around “Planes of Power” and said “lets just let them kill gods now”. Meridian 59 had a decent amount in there and some world-changing events (more than EverQuest, actually). Ultima Online had some good stuff going on, though it was really only available if you were in the top tier of players (and weren’t getting ganked). I can’t speak beyond that but someone told me FFXI had something of a story going on, there’s plenty of free MMOs which make a better attempt than the aforementioned FPS titles, and as much as I don’t like WoW it at least tried harder than Quake.

(That is to say, it tried at all…)

I don’t expect the level of Shin Megami Tensei out of my MMOs, but I’ll not say GW2 has awesome writing in all areas. The Personal Story shines in a few spots, and really lacks in others. The best parts tend to be out in the world, in my opinion, and can be missed readily. (For instance, I really like the writing they slipped in with Rox, and some of the events in Blazeridge Steppes with the Ebon Vanguard and Legions working together work out for me.)

What I’ve heard about “The Queen’s Speech” gives me hope they’ll manage to improve the quality of the Living Story writing thus far by actually getting some motion on plot.

Why do you bring games that were released decades ago? Are you in 1990 or 2013? Its an insult to fps’s to even compare them to mmo’s when it comes to story/dialogues/voice acting/characters. MMO’s have two things, gameplay and longevity, everything else is done better by any other genre. I have almost 3k hours in gw2 and don’t know a single character’s name… that’s how memorable they’re.

The Secret World has the best story telling of any game I have played. It has other things that drag it down. Most people do not care for the story even if it is written well. It just seems to be tell me I am the best and then leave. If they had a summary for the quests most would read that and never worry about the details.

Orpheal.8263:

I wanted just to show from where anet was going away to what we sadly have now in GW2 in regard of story telling.
These 2 cinematics were made after the games were already released.
Its quite sad, that they weren’t part of the games, like starting cinematics once you start the game for the first time to bring the gamer into the right mood for the game.

Cinematics are much better for story telling, but I also know, that they take naturally alot more effort, than making some kind of lifeless 2D art animated a tiny bit.

This here is nothing against cinematics:

http://video.golem.de/games/5555/guild-wars-2-trailer-%28gamescom-2011%29.html
(Sorry for ther german site, couldn’t find any better)

Yes, that art stuff is pretty to look at (the beginning very everything is in that 2D Art and painted), with the right back ground music you can get also some kind of emotion into it, but when compared to a real cinematic, it just hasn’t quite of the punch you get from a 3D cinematic.

Anyway, GW2 would have been alot more better, if at least most of the scenes and the story telling would have had at least the same quality like this one trailer in regard of the nice painted 2D stuff, which they showed 2011 at Gamescom in my hometown Cologne in Germany

i agree with you, how much more dramatic is the entrance of tequatl in this trailer than:
(quaggan voice)
THERE SOMETHING IN THE WATER HEEEEEEELP!

Yargesh.4965:

The Secret World has the best story telling of any game I have played. It has other things that drag it down. Most people do not care for the story even if it is written well. It just seems to be tell me I am the best and then leave. If they had a summary for the quests most would read that and never worry about the details.

I did hear that this game had some original stuff but i gotta ask, do you play anything else outside MMO’s? Cuz if its the best you’ve seen that’s kinda sad

Nuka Cola.8520:

Why do you bring games that were released decades ago? Are you in 1990 or 2013? Its an insult to fps’s to even compare them to mmo’s when it comes to story/dialogues/voice acting/characters. MMO’s have two things, gameplay and longevity, everything else is done better by any other genre. I have almost 3k hours in gw2 and don’t know a single character’s name… that’s how memorable they’re.

Why did you bring up CounterStrike, which was released a long time ago? If you bring up old games, I’ll bring up old games. And in 2013, the story of FPSs still isn’t much better than MMOs even with cutscenes and voices. The Halo series isn’t very strong with the story or characterizations (with maybe exceptions I can count on one hand). Outside of that, MAYBE Half-Life 2, but I haven’t played it and it’s protagonist has no personality. At all. Ditto Portal.

As for “isn’t done better by any other genre”? Longevity (in terms of repeat play) is the cornerstone of multiplayer-capable FPS, as well as some (but not many) RPGs. Gameplay is a nebulous matter, and it falls onto how much you like particular genres; good gameplay in an RPG is not the same as good gameplay in a fighting game, or a sports game.

Though if you’re talking about challenging mechanics, I’d put MOBA type games ahead of MMOs easily. Also with more longevity, so long as you can stand the other players. Or, dare I say, Magic the Gathering beats all these for longevity and gameplay and while it is technically an old game . . . it’s still going and will probably still go for another five to ten years.

And, yes, the flavor text on MTG cards gives a surprising amount of story behind the game and fictional universe.

In a nutshell, here’s what OP is saying, using a Star Wars analogy;

The original Star Wars (4,5,6) movie characters R2D2, C3PO and the Ewoks provided comic relief without trying too hard or making a big deal of it. Kids and adults alike, loved it for generations!

Then new Star Wars (1,2,3) movie characters such as Jar Jar Binx came on the scene, and they just tried waaaay too hard to be funny and silly, and while popular with some kids for a short while, adults hated it, and those same kids when they grew/grow up will hate it as well.

Anet needs to take a ‘page’ of the Star Wars ‘book’.

Pure Heart.1456:

In a nutshell, here’s what OP is saying, using a Star Wars analogy;

The original Star Wars (4,5,6) movie characters R2D2, C3PO and the Ewoks provided comic relief without trying too hard or making a big deal of it. Kids and adults alike, loved it for generations!

Then new Star Wars (1,2,3) movie characters such as Jar Jar Binx came on the scene, and they just tried waaaay too hard to be funny and silly, and while popular with some kids for a short while, adults hated it, and those same kids when they grew/grow up will hate it as well.

Anet needs to take a ‘page’ of the Star Wars ‘book’.

Noooooo . . . no, they don’t need to add a Jar Jar. They don’t need to pull a Star Wars. They need to pull a Fringe, and tie the threads together. Preferably with a Walter Bishop around.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Why do you bring games that were released decades ago? Are you in 1990 or 2013? Its an insult to fps’s to even compare them to mmo’s when it comes to story/dialogues/voice acting/characters. MMO’s have two things, gameplay and longevity, everything else is done better by any other genre. I have almost 3k hours in gw2 and don’t know a single character’s name… that’s how memorable they’re.

Why did you bring up CounterStrike, which was released a long time ago? If you bring up old games, I’ll bring up old games. And in 2013, the story of FPSs still isn’t much better than MMOs even with cutscenes and voices. The Halo series isn’t very strong with the story or characterizations (with maybe exceptions I can count on one hand). Outside of that, MAYBE Half-Life 2, but I haven’t played it and it’s protagonist has no personality. At all. Ditto Portal.

As for “isn’t done better by any other genre”? Longevity (in terms of repeat play) is the cornerstone of multiplayer-capable FPS, as well as some (but not many) RPGs. Gameplay is a nebulous matter, and it falls onto how much you like particular genres; good gameplay in an RPG is not the same as good gameplay in a fighting game, or a sports game.

Though if you’re talking about challenging mechanics, I’d put MOBA type games ahead of MMOs easily. Also with more longevity, so long as you can stand the other players. Or, dare I say, Magic the Gathering beats all these for longevity and gameplay and while it is technically an old game . . . it’s still going and will probably still go for another five to ten years.

And, yes, the flavor text on MTG cards gives a surprising amount of story behind the game and fictional universe.

CS Go just came out and i did not bring it to prove fps’s have good story but the opposite because this game has no story its just there for multiplayer. Play the last of us, red dead redemption, deus ex: HR, max pain 3 and all these titles and tell me gw2 reaching even 10% of the awesomness these titles story is. I mean even CoD and Halo have better story lol, hell, even crappy campaigns of battlefield games have a better one lmao.

Nuka Cola.8520:

CS Go just came out and i did not bring it to prove fps’s have good story but the opposite because this game has no story its just there for multiplayer. Play the last of us, red dead redemption, deus ex: HR, max pain 3 and all these titles and tell me gw2 reaching even 10% of the awesomness these titles story is. I mean even CoD and Halo have better story lol, hell, even crappy campaigns of battlefield games have a better one lmao.

In terms of story? GW2 is better than Max Payne 3, and probably any Call of Duty and Halo overall. In terms of presentation of that story, probably only on par. (That’s something which annoys me to no end, mind you. The Living Story has gotten better at presentation, so let’s hope the writing catches up.)

Now, I’ve heard amazing things about those other titles but I think you cherry-picked. You didn’t mention “The Line” at all, which I would have heartily agreed with as being superior in story and presentation. You also didn’t mention Mass Effect 3, where the story took a right turn off a cliff as far as making any sense with the previous games. Then there’s Diablo 3, where there was an incredible effort to put production value into their work but it was really kind of . . . “WTF is this?” . . .

There’s also no mention of Persona, which is another one I would have happily said “yes, this is awesome”. Or Monster Hunter Tri, which falls under “what story?” with great gameplay under the belt. No Minecraft, no Bastion, and no Journey. No “Call of Juarez: The Cartel”, which is a FPS title which tried the story thing and failed spectacularly on all fronts.

And most glaringly, you didn’t bring up Portal 2. Which, you know, would have been another one which would have definitely worked for you.

I am glad that the general consensus is that story writing is KIIIITTEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNN

Hell Avenger.7021:

I am glad that the general consensus is that story writing is KIIIITTEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNN

It’s not the writing I have great problems with, it’s the presentation and some of the voice direction. The “stand and talk” dialogue does no favors for a story which is pretty heavy with cliche from time to time (thing is, it seems to know that it’s got the cliche and runs with it anyway).

I have said Prophecies’ story wasn’t as good, but it was presented better through the game-engine cutscenes we got. Something we started seeing again in the Living Story, so I am hopeful we get better as we go.

Big FPS player here and I have to say all this talk about story in FPS games is making me go.

“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? That game had a story?”

I have to admit that there are certain games I play for story and certain ones I could care less. MMORPG and FPS games fall into that latter category just let me shoot some people online.

Lokki.1092:

Big FPS player here and I have to say all this talk about story in FPS games is making me go.

“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? That game had a story?”

I have to admit that there are certain games I play for story and certain ones I could care less. MMORPG and FPS games fall into that latter category just let me shoot some people online.

multiplayer FPS dont need story, it needs players to play with.

MMORPG is not multiplayer FPS, and it should have lore and proper story outline. HOWEVER, if you are going apply some story mission, then do it justice. Else, don’t do it. Look at Lineage 2, kittttyyyyyy what story?

Lokki.1092:

Big FPS player here and I have to say all this talk about story in FPS games is making me go.

“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? That game had a story?”

I have to admit that there are certain games I play for story and certain ones I could care less. MMORPG and FPS games fall into that latter category just let me shoot some people online.

Yes that game had a story. It doesn’t need to have a lot of story, it needs to have as much as necessary.

Battlefield 2 has the perfect “story” – you can see in the (short) tactical briefing that some MEC force is fighting the USMC and China, and that’s all you need to know or care about, it’s not too much and it’s not too little. You can’t possibly make a better story than that.

Same for Counter Strike. You rescue hostages, terrorists try to stop you. Perfect.

Now take Diablo 3. Diablo: “So, you approach the Oculus with the aim to destroy it? You will not succeed!”. This guy is trying too hard – terrible story.

GW2 story is somewhere between those. It’s not really bad, it gets the job done. I think it could have been much better though.

Vayne.8563:

I’ve read/seen interviews with the writing team. And I have experience from inside the field as well. I can say how it’s done. And logically writers wouldn’t write this stuff if they weren’t forced to…because the same team writes regional dialogue and personal story dialogue. I’m not sure how else you’d account for the discrepancy.

No, you can’t. If the experience inside the field were something you could point to, it would also point to each studio doing things quite differently. They just said in a recent interview that a team that wrote much of the ambient dialog that did not work on the story dialog is now doing story dialog. Writers frame stories. Gameplay fills in the frame, writers fill in the gaps, gameplay fills in the gaps, writers in the gaps again…

How and where those lines are drawn are different in every studio and even within a studio can change game to game, section of the game to section of the game.

Nothing excuses the poor writing. It’s just as much a part of the world you’re presenting as the gameplay. If you have a gameplay need that means the story must be horrible to support it, you change the gameplay need. Tutorials may be the ONE area where this gets a pass.

Unleashed.6195:

Vayne.8563:

I’ve read/seen interviews with the writing team. And I have experience from inside the field as well. I can say how it’s done. And logically writers wouldn’t write this stuff if they weren’t forced to…because the same team writes regional dialogue and personal story dialogue. I’m not sure how else you’d account for the discrepancy.

No, you can’t. If the experience inside the field were something you could point to, it would also point to each studio doing things quite differently. They just said in a recent interview that a team that wrote much of the ambient dialog that did not work on the story dialog is now doing story dialog. Writers frame stories. Gameplay fills in the frame, writers fill in the gaps, gameplay fills in the gaps, writers in the gaps again…

How and where those lines are drawn are different in every studio and even within a studio can change game to game, section of the game to section of the game.

Nothing excuses the poor writing. It’s just as much a part of the world you’re presenting as the gameplay. If you have a gameplay need that means the story must be horrible to support it, you change the gameplay need. Tutorials may be the ONE area where this gets a pass.

Yes, there is exactly one excuse for poor writing. Lack of revision and poor proofreading. How do I mean? First, assume you’re a writer. (And you haven’t gone searching for a better job.)

Well, say you need to write a chapter to fill in between chapters 6 and 8. You know what happens in there, what has to happen in there, but not the finer details. You scribble out notes and then a rough draft. Done, move on to chapter 9. But when you go back through the story as a whole read, you’re not really reading what’s there but you are reading what’s in your mind.

This is most often how I find writers have poor writing slip on by, and the reason good editors are important.

It can be magnified to an interesting level when there’s a deadline involved. And, it’s been said often, there was a considerable deadline pressure going on. I’d wager there’s the spot where many of the things in this game went wrong. Is it a valid excuse? Sure. A good defense? Maybe . . .

Does it change the results? Not really.

“You’ll find that with unity, many impossible things can be achieved” Doesn’t require an editor to become “You think too little of yourself and others.”

And neither require an editor to become what an actual published, quality author could produce. Sometimes, things are a matter of talent. If they released concept art like they did writing in this game, you would have a mixture of images done with a trackball and Microsoft Paint rather than the mind blowingly incredible work they have.

Unleashed.6195:

“You’ll find that with unity, many impossible things can be achieved” Doesn’t require an editor to become “You think too little of yourself and others.”

And neither require an editor to become what an actual published, quality author could produce. Sometimes, things are a matter of talent. If they released concept art like they did writing in this game, you would have a mixture of images done with a trackball and Microsoft Paint rather than the mind blowingly incredible work they have.

Funny enough, I’ve seen stuff produced in MS paint which was actually rather good.

But those are good soundbites, I’ll stand by watching what happened to “Goblet of Fire” as proof excellent writers still need excellent editors. Or anything by Piers Anthony.

Tobias You get his point dont bend it.
And I agree with Unleashed

By the way, please do not take this as some insult that the people who did the writing are “bad people”. They may not even be bad writers, I don’t know what happened there. Maybe writing isn’t their full time gig. Maybe they want to be writers, were given a shot, didn’t work out.

I have tremendous respect for ArenaNet. Much of that stems from GW1, but also from watching people like Gaile who have been with them for years and have been incredible since the first day they started.

I’m certain the staff they had writing for GW2’s elements that are as bad as they are are also incredible people. Either their talent or the circumstances simply did not line up with what should have been required. Nothing more or less.

Tai Kratos.3247:

Shagaz.6209:

snip

snip

My problem with those guys is mostly on individual level as they are full of backstabbing, greedy, crazy, brutal and not too bright evildoers. Really, does every Son has to be an idiot that greets others with words like “Argh!! You don’t understand us!! We are powerful and kill everything!! Jormag, Jormag, hallelujah !!!”
Where’s their smirk, honor, brain or personality?

And on the general level the idea that every race has to have some kind of evil counter-part is generally stupid, just as it was stupid in wow and I don’t know why they copied this. Ok, maybe they have some not-so-noble goals. Not everyone has to be some deep guy for the sake of deepness. But if they would have been powerful and have personality then I would love to hate them. Just like for example Handsome Jack from BL2 or Chaos Gods from Warhammer universe. Currently baddies are more like vermins. And when you have evildoers without interesting motives or without power then they become the “goblins” of the universe. Problem currently we have way too many goblins.

And bandits act the way they act because they apparently want to make queen look kittenhe isn’t able to deal with them. Genius!

Walter White is the perfect bad guy. Vic Mackey is the perfect bad guy. They’re perfect bad guys because you can see how they would believe they are the good guys. Not see as in “I can write the explanation”, but see as in understand. You may disagree, may find their morals lacking and get a little under their skin to see that much of what they do is selfish, but then we all see a little of that in ourselves and question “Would I do that?”

Another type of well executed bad guy are the broken bad guys. The people who have a wire loose. They’re loners, less common, but they’re terrifying because they seem to have no reason to do what they’re doing. They enjoy it, or get some thrill from it (perhaps enthralled with guilt afterwards and then self-loathing kicks in, but still).

A mixture of the two are perfect villains to fight against. The first type make you question whether you’re really a hero at all. Maybe the system is broken. The laws are maybe unjust. Maybe they see the world more clearly than you from experience.

The second type are great because they allow you to unquestionably be a force for good.

Both give writers and content creators tremendous room for creativity. I’d like to see more of that.

And whats up with every single character and player in the game being youthful, good-looking and having perfectly-shaped bodies? Is this a world where nobody gets old or fat or frail? It’s one of them things that makes it so… juvenile. Even Fable has more maturity.

With the Living Story, part of the problem is that they only have 10 levels to focus on any part of the story you chose. That’s only 5 or so missions where ANY NPC (including villains) can be introduced, explored, and dealt with. It’s no surprise that the middle part, exploring the characters, is pretty much skipped.

It looks like they’re trying to get past that with the Living Story, but that’s pretty slow. And it does nothing for most of the rest of the game.

Tai Kratos.3247:

The Separatists are a much more compelling human antagonist, especially since the human and charr political conflict has very little presence apart from the relationship between Rytlock and Logan and the passing presence in the Separatists. The part about them that I find weird is that they have no charr counterpart. You would think that there would also be some charr angry about the alliance, but you only find that on the human side. I guess humans are just more racist or something. Maybe they wanted to keep the charr villainous faction to just the Flame Legion, but they already have two bad humans factions – bandits and separatists – so I don’t see why that would have been an issue.

I know your post is a little old now bur Charr Renegades in Fields of Ruin are their counterpart. I’m pretty sure that map is the only place you find them, though.

The dead animal Spirits of the Norn is interesting. I visit the shrine in Hoelbrak fairly often and the way I interpret what I read there seems to me that one of them, maybe two, aren’t dead but just “lost”. Somewhere in the Mists I guess. Anet could get their writing shoes on and make a good, strong LS series about finding them.

I just wrote an entire post about why the line “there is no excuse for bad writing” is totally incorrect. There would be no excuse for bad writing if writers were in control of the creative process…which is very seldom the case.

When you write on spec, you’re given something to write, and you can write it to the best of your ability. But when that writing is time sensitive, and under control of another department….a department that specifies what you have to write, how long it has to be, and has the final veto on it…writers simply have to stay within their brief.

So if someone came to me and said, I need 10,000 words of dialogue by tomorrow that say this, and I approached them with some ideas and they said, no, stay on the brief….well…the fault then lies with the direction not the writing.

And since this very sort of thing has happened to me (not exactly that but close enough), you can blame the writing all you want, but I suspect project management has a lot to do with it.

Writers when part of a team are seldom in charge of projects.

A concept artist is often given a spec to follow as well. They do not then get to toss a few random pencil scratches across the paper and call it a day.

I saw your post. You could rewrite the entire script of the game without impacting setting, gameplay, outcomes and make dramatic improvements to it in the process. Even silly things such as self sacrifice at Claw Island become rewritten as unintentional death where some craven guard closes the gate before allowing everyone to get through.

I would feel infinitely more sympathy for the companions they gave me if I thought some terrified guard doomed them to die so he could close the gate but somehow I made it through ok.

If someone sees those tweaks and says, “No, I want it done the terrible way.”, then the blame shifts but the blame remains. I won’t say I’d ever expect a writer to give up a paying gig, that’s as tough a business as there is, but now the blame is on the person demanding it be done terribly rather than well.

I find that to be terribly unlikely, but also irrelevant. There is no excuse. Tens of millions of dollars spent on development… the story deserved more attention and love.

It is perfectly acceptable to both respect and admire a company and enjoy the game while at the same time leveling fair criticism to the components that are not up to the same quality as the rest. There is no special honor in seeking out every excuse for why the things that are below par can remain that way.

Personally, I think the story suffered mostly from its pacing.

While I do understand that slowing the pace down would require more content to be made for the story, if they managed to pace the story a bit more, they could have developed characters a bit more and given themselves more opportunity for players to become more attached to characters, linked it to the open-world a bit more (instead of having you gain ranks through the story, have ranks done by representing your faction through the world, and then you’re called to do a certain mission), and a slow build-up to certain events.

The genre (and for the second point, games) as a whole though, seems to:

• Try to make each player feel like The One – In an MMO, this is an absurd concept. Not every player can be The One. Thus, what devs need to do is make the player feel heroic alongside other players.
• Try to tell the story through cutscenes – mostly down to how technology has advanced, games tend to do most of their storytelling through cutscenes. For things that, say, have happened in the past, this isn’t too much of a problem, but continuously using cutscenes to tell the story throughout the game takes control away from the player, which somewhat defeats the point of an interactive media. Devs need to tell the story without taking that control away from the player, through the mechanics of the game and the interactive content part, rather than cutscenes in the beginning, middle and end of that particular part of the story.

Imagine how much more hard hitting

TL:DR

• Don’t try to make the player The One, but make them feel like a hero
• Try to tell the story through game-play, not cut-scenes

Unleashed.6195:

A concept artist is often given a spec to follow as well. They do not then get to toss a few random pencil scratches across the paper and call it a day.

I saw your post. You could rewrite the entire script of the game without impacting setting, gameplay, outcomes and make dramatic improvements to it in the process. Even silly things such as self sacrifice at Claw Island become rewritten as unintentional death where some craven guard closes the gate before allowing everyone to get through.

I would feel infinitely more sympathy for the companions they gave me if I thought some terrified guard doomed them to die so he could close the gate but somehow I made it through ok.

If someone sees those tweaks and says, “No, I want it done the terrible way.”, then the blame shifts but the blame remains. I won’t say I’d ever expect a writer to give up a paying gig, that’s as tough a business as there is, but now the blame is on the person demanding it be done terribly rather than well.

I find that to be terribly unlikely, but also irrelevant. There is no excuse. Tens of millions of dollars spent on development… the story deserved more attention and love.

It is perfectly acceptable to both respect and admire a company and enjoy the game while at the same time leveling fair criticism to the components that are not up to the same quality as the rest. There is no special honor in seeking out every excuse for why the things that are below par can remain that way.

I’m just saying that blame should be put where the blame is. I doubt very much writers say down and wrote this stuff without being told pretty much exactly what someone else wanted to say. It just doesn’t seem very likely.

My issue is it’s easy to blame the writers…but the writers aren’t necessarily at fault.

Unleashed.6195:

A concept artist is often given a spec to follow as well. They do not then get to toss a few random pencil scratches across the paper and call it a day.

I saw your post. You could rewrite the entire script of the game without impacting setting, gameplay, outcomes and make dramatic improvements to it in the process. Even silly things such as self sacrifice at Claw Island become rewritten as unintentional death where some craven guard closes the gate before allowing everyone to get through.

I would feel infinitely more sympathy for the companions they gave me if I thought some terrified guard doomed them to die so he could close the gate but somehow I made it through ok.

If someone sees those tweaks and says, “No, I want it done the terrible way.”, then the blame shifts but the blame remains. I won’t say I’d ever expect a writer to give up a paying gig, that’s as tough a business as there is, but now the blame is on the person demanding it be done terribly rather than well.

I find that to be terribly unlikely, but also irrelevant. There is no excuse. Tens of millions of dollars spent on development… the story deserved more attention and love.

It is perfectly acceptable to both respect and admire a company and enjoy the game while at the same time leveling fair criticism to the components that are not up to the same quality as the rest. There is no special honor in seeking out every excuse for why the things that are below par can remain that way.

Agreed ^^

All that said, I’ve not really commented myself on the subject because, frankly, it’s people’s opinion on the subject. It will change from person to person as will expectations. At the end of the day, everyone always thinks they can perform a job they had no hand in better than whoever finished.

I’m just waiting for when Tengu are finally a playable race. Hopefully, by then, the writers have some good shtuff to throw down for their history/situation/participation in the story.

Not to beat an 8 month dead horse but this post speaks much truth.

I tried to get my girlfriend into Gw2 recently and she didn’t enjoy the game because she said everything was so cheesy and cliche. I cringe just thinking about her going through the personal story.

:(

Please aim for at least a M15+ rating on the writing in the next story arc Anet. Should take some pro tips from the writers over at blizzard. Now THEY are awesome. Mostly.

Surely not any tips from other writers from other game developers, but more instead writign tips of really well known professional fantasy novel book authors….

The GW2 novel books had so far a much better story, very alot better written, more dramatic, more mature, more nice to read, giving you the feeling, that you never want to stop reading, that you get curious how the story progresses and that you want always to know, how it goes further…

Thats exactly the state, of how a good MMORPG story must be. It must be so compelling, that people simply don’t want to leave the game, because they want to see, how the story goes on.
A very good game story is like a fantasy novel book, that you just never ever want to give out of your hands, until you have read it through….

The game’s story quality just needs to quickly get to match the same quality like the novel books had it or naturally even surpass that quality and get better than that.

ANet has shown over the last half year, that they can increase the dramaturgy of their living story, however, just the whole story around Scarlet was from the begin on so cheap and cheesy/cliche, that regardless of hwat Anet would have done with the story, nothign would have really made it any better.
I’m pretty sure they would have been many alternative better story lines that could have been chosen to begin the living story with to use it to bring us at the end of the first season to a new elder dragon/ dragon champion in a new territory of the world map, thats currently not explorable.

Me personally would have found it alot better , if whole season 1 would have been an expanded story line that would have been based on the Ghost of Ascalon Novel to connect that novel book more to the current game and use the season to lead us more to the story behind Kralkatorrik first and letting us first explore more areas of the old Crystal Desert first and the rest of Arah, that is still unexplorable in the central and east of it.

That would have been a far better desicision to start the living story with, than to use it with a 0815 boring crazy villain to lead us into a new territory where its predictable by now, that there we will find a new elder dragon that is so far unknown to Tyria, because people know its name only from an enemy skil lfrom Subject Alpha in the inquest dungeon

Agreed. A lot of the writing is so cringe worthy that it makes me not want to play. And don’t get me started on the voice acting…

I main mesmer, but I’ll try this spell:

Oh, thread so dead.
Writhing in pain.
Arise arise, to post again.

Isn’t the obsession with maturity a good sign that we’re immature? Reality check: This isn’t Teletubbies. A twelve year old could certainly not have written this. And it isn’t necessarily a bad thing that Guild Wars 2 doesn’t take itself too seriously.

This whole debacle reminds me a lot of when I was still a teenager six years ago. Honestly, I thought I knew everything there was to know about writing. I was embarrassed to be caught with anything that wasn’t worthy of Shakespeare. Everything else was full of silly plots and silly characters that made absolutely no sense. And silly things were for little kids. Me? I was an adult. An extremely precocious 14 year old.

I realize that criticism is an important step for growth, and it’s very admirable that so many people believe their opinions make a difference. However, enough is enough. Our individualism can only drive us so far before it becomes arrogance. We need to stop pretending that we’re tantamount to high-and-mighty college writing professors and accept that our rights as consumers only go so far.

For some reason, we are convinced that our role as gamers justifies everything beyond giving traditional feedback. We see ourselves as literary critics with an eye for only the most exquisite literature. But this isn’t the case. It can’t be. It is not our place to tell Arena Net how to do their job. Our role as gamers, as consumers, is not to tell ArenaNet how to work. Our role is merely the simple one of playing, testing, and giving appropriate feedback. Anything beyond that is either a mistake, an oversight, or an acute display of arrogance.

Our place is not to “teach” Arena Net how to do their job; our place is only to say, “I don’t like this. Here’s why,” or, “I like this. Here’s why.” We completely overstep our bounds when we say, “I don’t like this. Here is how it should have been done, and I want you to do it this way because I obviously know better than you.”

No amount of qualification will make this right. We can’t list all the complex, high-quality books we’ve read as proof that we know how things should be done. We can’t list all the examples of “good” story telling that we’ve seen or heard to qualify any sort of teaching degree. Unless specifically petitioned by ArenaNet to fill this particular role, we have no right to tell Arena Net what to do.

In this economy, the fact that we pay someone for a product demonstrates that we trust their competence. If we purchase something without first knowing their competence, then we ourselves are at fault for not knowing what we got ourselves into. In Guild Wars 2’s case, many people trusted ArenaNet to deliver a product with similar quality to Guild Wars 1. However, when these people decided that the two games were on different levels of quality, they became angry with what they considered “incompetence”.

Therefore, they have two choices and only two choices. They can either continue to trust the precedent set by Guild Wars 1, or they can choose to abandon their support for ArenaNet entirely. In other words, they can choose to believe that ArenaNet will deliver on their previously conceived competence, or they can choose to believe that it was some sort of fluke and that level of quality will never happen again. They are free to do either.

However, what they must do is keep their ego in check. They are not qualified to tell Arena Net how to become “competent”, and they shouldn’t assume that they know better or can speak for anyone else. They aren’t fit to determine who should and who shouldn’t enjoy a product. And most definitely they can’t think of themselves as the “savior” of either ArenaNet or any “poor soul” about to support Guild Wars 2.

Therefore, when ArenaNet does something that we don’t agree with, it’s perfectly acceptable to say that we aren’t crazy about it. It’s even better to explain specifically what we don’t like about it. However, the real problems begin when we butt in to where we don’t belong. Unless ArenaNet asks us what we would like in the game or how we think the story should pan out, we can’t assume to know any better, and we can’t assume that our opinion actually matters.

Simply purchasing the game doesn’t automatically give us a free-for-all pass to act as we please. Our role as consumers doesn’t mean that we are entitled to anything beyond our original exchange with ArenaNet. In fact, communicating with the developers is a privilege that many people never have. And by the very nature of a privilege, we ought to be thanking ArenaNet for this opportunity by observing a certain “consumer etiquette” in regards to our feedback.

Yay yin?

There are points between “Scarlet LS” and “masterwork literature” on the quality spectrum. I don’t think anyone is expecting master level storytelling in an MMO, but if I’m going to spend money I expect something better than Scarlet, which basically devolved into this:

Theundersigned.4761:

Isn’t the obsession with maturity a good sign that we’re immature?

No. And if I needed justification for considering the story writing god awful, I´d bring up my literature M.A. – hope that is enough for your academic entry level of criticizing the game. Though I don´t make a big fuzz about the whole story thing, just your post is really off the mark. I can consider a car or whatever product unfitting, even though I cannot build a car myself.

I’m probably doing a terrible job at explaining myself, but here it goes…

“Therefore, when ArenaNet does something that we don’t agree with, it’s perfectly acceptable to say that we aren’t crazy about it. It’s even better to explain specifically what we don’t like about it. However, the real problems begin when we butt in to where we don’t belong. Unless ArenaNet asks us what we would like in the game or how we think the story should pan out, we can’t assume to know any better, and we can’t assume that our opinion actually matters.”

It isn’t our place to tell ArenaNet how to act without its permission or petition, but that in no way implies that we can’t offer criticism. It’s often expected of us. However, we can’t think that we’re better and smarter than they are either.

Giving a suggestion for mounts, for instance, isn’t the same as telling ArenaNet that mounts should have always been in the game, all the other MMOs we’ve played had mounts (qualifying our suggestion), and any MMO without mounts is bound to fail. We shouldn’t believe that by suggesting mounts, we are smarter would-be developers than ArenaNet, just as we shouldn’t tell ArenaNet “how to write” because “we know better”.

It’s the whole “l2p” counter-argument.

An example many people could probably relate to: if I came to the forums one day and started talking about how thieves kept killing my mesmer in WvW, I would much rather someone say, “Well, this is what I do when I fight thieves…” than, “l2p moron. I can kill thieves blindfolded.” Even if the latter person gives dozens of viable options for killing thieves, that first sentence is completely unnecessary.

Furthermore, (unfounded) academic achievement represents nothing more than a college vouching for our abilities. It says absolutely nothing about our skill, only our dedication, wealth, disposition to the current academic format, etc.

A doctor graduating at the bottom of his or her class is still a doctor.

I think its more of an animation/camerawork/format problem than a writing problem. Video game writing hasn’t been that good since the times where writing was all you had to portray something, and even there, there’s nothing that rivals a serious literary gem. Bad writing might’ve been a problem back in the SNES days, but nowadays, what passes for ‘good’ storytelling isn’t all that high and good storytelling is now predicated on non-writing elements.

It’s probably attributable to the fact that watching someone stand equidistant, gesture mildly and have minimal facial rigging really takes the thunder out of everything. The only time I really felt like something made sense was when Gixx talked. His face as kitten mean as his character is.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

In terms of story? GW2 is better than Max Payne 3, and probably any Call of Duty and Halo overall. In terms of presentation of that story, probably only on par. (That’s something which annoys me to no end, mind you. The Living Story has gotten better at presentation, so let’s hope the writing catches up.)

I really have to disagree with you in every single game mentioned. All those games, or atleast some of them, had a story which made me curious. The GW2 story, for the most part, did not.
It’s a matter of taste, but the GW2 story was a never-ending pain for the most part for me.