Guild Wars 2

I might elaborate a little on each of these points later on, but I wanted to add a quote that I think perfectly sums up what Guild Wars 2 hasn’t yet achieved, from some people who clearly know an awful lot about game design. This is from Jeff Grubb (The Emotional Connection in MMOs, emphasis mine):

Identification with your avatar is a key to emotional investment. To create that bond, a player has to evolve from “this is my character” to “this is me.” Some of that is done graphically, with customized appearance and equipment. But a big part of it is to create options that allow the player to engage and identify with his creation. While we work from the basic assumption of “I am a hero,” we provide enough variance to allow a variety of playing styles. In addition, those choices will have effects, ranging from how the story progresses to unique items within your home instance and even to conversations and scenes that reinforce your choices.

In addition to that, we have to consider the world around the character. Not only does the character have to be accessible but the world that character lives in needs to promote emotional investment.

I will keep waiting to see the meaningful variance in playing styles that Jeff describes, as I’m afraid that a few extra lines of pre-scripted dialogue and an item or two in a non-persistent instance doesn’t yet outweigh the monotony of being yet another one-dimensional warrior hero.

Oh, and just to elaborate briefly on one of those points which I think is incredibly important:

Power isn’t everything.

This is has got to be the biggest problem that afflicts all the modern MMOGs that have heavily adopted the Dikumud style of hack & slash gameplay mechanics, not just Guild Wars 2.

I strongly believe that character development does not have to equate to how powerful your character has become.

The level grind from 1 – 80, the gear grind from 1 – 80, the skill point grind from 1 – ~40, the crafting grind from 1 – 400, the personal story, dungeons – it’s all about becoming more powerful or getting items that make me more powerful. Why can’t I choose to develop my character in a different direction entirely other than how big my damage numbers are?

Maybe I want to take up an accredited profession well away from the ‘front lines’ and become a merchant? Maybe I want to specialise in a very esoteric area of spellcraft or martial proficiency, sacrificing my overall effectiveness in exchange for taking on a very uncommon but useful role in society? Maybe I want to express my creativity, principles or knowledge in a way that allows me to share and be recognised for my contributions? Maybe I want to join a particular village or city and set down roots, have a family, build a garden, or start a cult?

I know there are complaints about the ‘end-game’ not having enough progression, but I don’t think adding more tiers of grind for stats or cosmetic options will solve the underlying issue at least for myself. These solutions can only further delay the inevitable crash once the developer-fed content runs out. Almost the whole PvE game, like so many before it, is entirely based on ‘power-ups’ for your character. If the only thing that matters is power, then quite obviously once you no longer have meaningful options to increase that power you aren’t as motivated to play.

Please, please, please consider ways to allow players to grow their characters other than vertically up a power tree, right from the start of the game, so that we can start to make our own stories and content, and then perhaps finally the dreaded content-release/consumption mindset and cycle can be broken.

What a brilliant post! I could not agree more.
My main digest of fiction is the fantasy genre. I am 48 years old and have read an awful lots of it over the years. Your opening paragraphs share my thoughts exactly. Why could I not be Quothe, flawed and a bit an idiot?
Well written sir, I tip my hat
/me tipping hat

Im quite disappointed not much focus was given to the dignity charm etc thing. Now its… nothing. :/ sorta hoped it was like a mass effect thing.

you missed somethign important OP.

the player isn’t the hero of gw2.

traehearne is.

penatbater.4710:

Im quite disappointed not much focus was given to the dignity charm etc thing. Now its… nothing. :/

I absolutely agree – in the beta weekends I thought that choosing your personality style would have a significant effect on gameplay.

It’s so unfortunate because I think there are a lot of things like that in GW2 – there is such phenomenal world infrastructure and underlying richness, but the actual mechanics with which you interact are always reduced to the simplest elements of what you can already find in any other generic hack-and-slash MMO.

yurtshone.7325:

What a brilliant post! I could not agree more.
My main digest of fiction is the fantasy genre. I am 48 years old and have read an awful lots of it over the years. Your opening paragraphs share my thoughts exactly. Why could I not be Quothe, flawed and a bit an idiot?
Well written sir, I tip my hat
/me tipping hat

You mean Kvothe, sir?

Florgknight.1589:

You mean Kvothe, sir?

Ahh, now the reference makes sense!

Absolutely, Yurtshone, those books were just a joy to read. <3 Patrick Rothfuss.

So – basically you’ve got systems that are handling transactions and for most people creating an engaging, immersive disbelief of suspension for most people. This particular one comes closer to overcoming those than a great many that we’ve become used to however its not satisfactory. Well easy answer – “pen and paper” games, take the system out of the loop and remove its limitation.

Oh – sure you can’t just play at your own convenience, can’t play with hundreds of people (limited by venue/geography), can’t play without pants (usually…), costs more per book than you payed for GW2 (in my country)… but its freedom from limitations, lets you play the way you want with the world/lore/character you want!

You do GM/Storytell right?

It is a bit strange when the “hero” in an MMO is surrounded by thousands of other “heros”.

I am in the same boat. I never like my characters to be a Hero because the game tells me they are. The story constantly telling me what a hero and how important my character is was nothing more than an emersion breaker for me. Every time I did a portion of the story that portrayed my character as special or unique, the first thing that pops into my head is: “Yeah, along with the millions of other people whom have completed this part of the story.”
The gw2 personal story really took the “personal” out of it by putting the development of our character out of our hands and into the hands of whomever wrote the story.

As a fantasy writer I am in constant awe and appreciation for the world you have created and the depth that exists (Fields of Ruin is my single favourite map), I played through every single zone up to Orr without touching the story and I got an amazing sense of the world’s lore. The story, however, was very poorly done. Not only in the story that was being told, but the mechanics used to portray it were poor. There are a couple of things that I think would have greatly improved the story.

Silent protagonist. Think Half-life, Legend of Zelda, Metroid and many other great titles. Having a silent protagonist is a style choice, even when the technology wasn’t able to provide voice-acted dialogue, we still had text. But having a silent protagonist allows anyone to identify with their character. Because the character is not speaking for them they get to decide the character’s motivations, their mood, reactions. Even in a fairly linear story that can have only one outcome, you feel in control, like you’re not just on a rollercoaster.
It is a very simple, yet powerful story telling technique in video games.

The second thing I believe would have made the story a lot better, in conjunction with the first, would be if Arena Net utilised the same technique for story instances as the “tutorial” areas. In these areas everyone is there. We’re all participating to fight and defend the village of Shaemoor and the Garrison gates, then we all charge out into battle together to take down the Earth Elemental.
Then from there on, you’re alone, and you’re a hero and asking yourself why you’re “THE hero of Shaemoor” instead of “A hero of Shaemoor”. What happened to all the other people you fought along side?
Wouldn’t it be great if all the other story instances, or at least the ones with big battles were like this? More of a free-flowing instance that cycles constantly, with a pre-event for people just joining while the instance is in-progress and waiting for the next cycle to begin.

Both of these techniques would greatly improve the story of GW2, but the first one by itself would be enough. Even stories of “Ordinary boy becomes a hero and saves the world” become better stories when you have a silent protagonist (see: Legend of Zelda).

I share your feelings, but I think there is no way for ANet to add that level of role-play to existing content without completely overhauling existing content, effectively making another game. BioWare and Bethesda have shown that to generate your own emotionally unique character, it matters a heck a lot more how you interact with other characters than how you kill them, or how you dress (though this too is a big part). To make that happen, the entire storyline of GW2 has to be buffed with branching npc dialogues and quest choices that take into account at very least your previous actions and likely also your race, profession, and gender. Basically what Jeff said. To evolve GW2’s single player to that level will require a huge commitment of resources, and I don’t think it’s practical or safe for ANet to attempt it right now.

Instead, I move that ANet decrease player footprint in the story, very much what GW1 did. [Ashes’ “silent protagonist;” I didn’t see his post when writing mine.] Make the story as good as possible but put the player character into an observer role, with only very major plot choices. That way, ANet doesn’t have to add enough variation for the story to cater to different player personalities. At the same time, I don’t have to see my own generic character enough to notice how much I hate him (I cannot stand good-to-do heroe types). Playing the single player campaign will be like reading a good book.

The player can define then herself in multiplayer, which is itself very challenging. I’ll use one common example: crafting. I know of guild mates who have focused on craft in other MMO, but honestly, is there a MMO where you can truly be an unique master crafter, crafting items that no one else can craft? More importantly, can you do it in a way that doesn’t involve hoarding material anyone to farm and then repeatedly doing the same crafting task (such as press a button or wait however many hours for one item to finish) over and over and over? Is there artistry or ingenuity or personality? I know of no game that can do this. Is there a MMO where you can be a professional thief, stealing other players items in a way that is both meaning and doesn’t break the game for most players? Can you be a diplomat or a merchant in a way that matters on a game-wide and long-term way? I’ve heard good thing about EVE on this front, but I haven’t played so I can’t say for sure. I do hear it’s not casual-player friendly. To make a game diverse enough to include many different activities and deep enough that each is a viable playing choice is even harder than to make the game emotionally invested.

You describe almost perfectly what I consider the ideal game. Perhaps it is best that there is no “ideal” game yet. What will I look forward to in the future if one happen to appear?

dirtyklingon.2918:

you missed somethign important OP.

the player isn’t the hero of gw2.

traehearne is.

I agreed it seem that Traehearne is the hero and not you.

I felt the same way. I figured that actual problem was the music. I turned it down, found some long trance mixes, and the feeling went away.

You guys really need to make the in-game music a lot better. It just destroys the whole awesomeness of this game. I mean, its so huge, so beautiful, lots of variance, and there is just that one little thing..

The OP’s post sparked several thoughts:

1) On being powerful: in many MMO’s, I’ve been in dungeons with anywhere from 4 to 7 other such powerful heroes. One of the standard lines from some of these dungeons was, “There are two of them. We’d better try to pull one at a time.” This was especially poignant in AoC, whose namesake would slaughter entire rooms full of foes, and we, the age’s new heroes, were going 6 v 1 on some nameless Stygian minion.

2) On progression: while identification is important to some folks, progressing is important to others. In computer games, progress can be in terms of influence or wealth, but those have arguably less effect on one’s fellow players than being good at the game’s primary activity, smashing or melting face. Further, fantasy as a genre is full of stories wherein the hero is either all that from the get go, or progresses from swineherd to mega-dude over the course of the story. While the better author’s present more involved, flawed characters, many do not.

3) Limits to existing technology: until a better form of artificial intelligence is available, every reaction to a player’s actions has to be pre-scripted. Offering moral choices and having those matter in both the game’s present and future is an enormous undertaking. While SP games can offer some of that complexity, programming in enough interactions and choices for millions of players and keeping track of who did what to whom would be a vastly different game than MMO’s offer. What then comes to question is, would the investment in making such a game pay off?

4) Role-playing: what you seem to be talking about is role-playing in which you become invested in the character. While some MMO’s are more conducive than others to RP, I have yet to see any in-game RP in GW2, at all. That in itself is unusual.

RP is in fact the answer. Tarnished Coast is the unofficial RP server and you run into RP everywhere. My guild has a guiding principal that RP trumps other game activities — not that we’re slacking on the PvE or even WvW, depending on which of us you look at — and we have robust storylines going on. Some of our stories started before BWE1 with RP on our guild site.

Just tonight we had a wonderful gathering at the Crow’s Nest. We’ve also done dungeons and exploration ICly, used some of the PS tales as springboards to our own stories, and have ongoing plans to put on plays and such. Our members include a lot of average-Joe characters, and no one really super powered. The PS isn’t canon to the characters, though bits of it might be. Donari does have a broken amulet as the only clue to his real parents, for instance. But they aren’t the ones the PS sets up.

I’d love the game to pay attention to the choices I’ve made, the traits I’ve chosen. I’d love it to give each of my alts a uniquely tailored story. I just know it can’t be done along with everything else the game has to do to function as an MMO. -shrugs- RP fills in the gaps. GW2 has so much fodder for the RP; the canvas of the world is lush and detailed, the lore easy to access. Why demand that it do everything for you?

Casual convenience, low costs, bigger pool of players, and the RESPONSIBILITY to play without pants on are things that offset the limitations the games currently have.

You can go “pen and paper” to remove the central systems which are limiting all the games in the world – however my GMs now specifically note that I can’t hit them up for gaming at two in the morning with fifty random people and no books, and regardless of anything else demand pants.

Sounds like you want to GM/Storytell an immersive fun game… maybe something like the old Neverwinter Nights toolkit and a persistent world project would make you appreciate how deep and flexible THIS game can be (comparatively).

Roven Leafsong.8917:

My suspicion?

I’m just not interested in playing another generic “MMO” hero (or heroine).

First, let me define what I mean (because hero has so many different interpretations). To me, a generic “MMO” hero has the following attributes:

• Their journey is always primarily about how powerful they can become;
• Violence and fighting is always their most effective and well-developed means of resolving issues;
• They are always a leader (or lieutenant) and inspire, command respect or provoke admiration and awe in others;
• Their every thought, move, word or action holds immense weight and importance to the world around them, and every story really does revolve around them;
• They are super-human and are constantly vanquishing invincible foes, solving inscrutable mysteries, exploring impassable wildernesses and accumulating unfathomable wealth or prestige;
• They hold no fear of crushing defeat or permanent harm – any failure is just a temporary minor setback; and
• They are always unfettered by politics, prejudices, dependence on others, consequences for their actions, or the daily trials and concerns of the ‘ordinary’ folk around them.

• There’s no power journey in Guild Wars 2, only a journey to get different races and factions to work together. But, if you call that reaching for power, then technically anything and everything is defined as that (even attempts to gain more wealth/money).

• Um,….ya, I suppose violence is the solution to Guild War’s 2 main question: “How does one KILL an Elder Dragon?” But many of the missions have a focus of being not about violence (such as sneaking into a “crime scene” using forged documents).

*Trahern (sp?) is the main hero in the story and is the leader of the Pact. The player is more of the lackey sidekick.

• Of course every story revolves around the one playing it in a video game. Playing someone else story would be boring and lame. It’s a video game, not a book.

• Dying 1/2 way through the story and getting a “Game Over” sign is NOT the way of an MMO. Of course the player is invincible.

• If you read the story, many times the characters are fearful, sad, and remorseful. They hate some of the decisions they make, and weep for the dead that helped them get that far.

• Many things are politics in the story. In fact, a major political set of the game is which faction you (the player) decides to pick to join for 1/3rd your story. That faction choice shows in the way NPC’s interact with you and their choices.

Great post, Roven.

Part of this is based on your character’s story and personality. I think GW2 has some good ideas here that aren’t really fleshed out. Home instances and the charm/dignity/ferocity mechanic sound cool on paper but are completely forgettable in practice. I think future expansions will use these mechanics better, and hopefully expand on them (from “home instance” to actual “player housing,” maybe?).

Another part is mechanics. Games with lots of moving parts, far too many for a single character to master, allow people to define their characters based on what skills/roles they choose to pursue. I don’t see GW2 moving in this direction, though, because they’ve very deliberately passed on the most common ways of creating player roles. No more trinity, so you can’t become a great healer. Crafting/gathering is unskilled labor — everyone can do everything, and the results are identical commodities — so you can’t become a great swordsmith.

I’d love the opportunity to be a merchant or a farmer or a builder, with real meaty gameplay to back it up, but at that point we’re probably talking about a different game entirely.

Some of the later posts also bring up an important point. The mainstream notion of “role-playing” has not broken out of its limited definition in the last 40 years. Whatever personality or other variances are added, the vast majority of RPG both digital and not are based on killing things. It can be for a multitude of reasons and through very creative ways, but the core remains the same. That’s what many, probably most players want out of MMORPG like GW2, and I’ve come to accept that.

Besides, I am not sure some of the most fascinating roles in literature can even be made into games. Take Dune, how are you going to role-play legally a Bene Gesserit Breeding Mistress or a Tleilaxu Master in a game? It makes role playing a Ixian Fabricator or Caladan Fisherman appear simple and a basic soldier or even Sardaukar childish.

kittenido.8436:

dirtyklingon.2918:

you missed somethign important OP.

the player isn’t the hero of gw2.

traehearne is.

I agreed it seem that Traehearne is the hero and not you.

Yes he is the hero, but you are his partner “the commander” your a huge hero as well…

great post!

I have no answers, but I suspect a day will come when the technology will catch up to the idea of a more emotionally complex game..

Florgknight.1589:

yurtshone.7325:

What a brilliant post! I could not agree more.
My main digest of fiction is the fantasy genre. I am 48 years old and have read an awful lots of it over the years. Your opening paragraphs share my thoughts exactly. Why could I not be Quothe, flawed and a bit an idiot?
Well written sir, I tip my hat
/me tipping hat

You mean Kvothe, sir?

Indeed, Sorry, it has been a while since I read them :-)

I can’t believe you seriously expected anything different in an automated game, rather than one run specifically for you by a DM/GM. Furthermore, what you are talking about is not simply an MMO genre hero; it’s a hero, period. I also disagree that these heroes are flawless or of black-and-white ethics; mine got drunk and naked in public and lost something valuable, just for starters, and made many impure bargains for strategic advantage. The character feels quite real to me and reflects many aspects of my own personality. Perhaps you just chose your character poorly, or are so focused on your own interests that you are misreading the game’s actual contents.

I’m tempted to say you should read a book, write a story, or pnp. (I have adapted pnp D&D games to be quite small-scale and RP-oriented with little or no combat. I’m surely not the only one.) But to be honest, it sounds like you’re seeking something that no fiction can ever provide in any form—all purely about you, with no trace of artificiality, authorship or collaboration. Maybe you should go to sleep and dream? Go on a trip somwhere? If you want it to be your identity rather than identification, it’s not RP; it’s RL.

If it’s RP you want, there are certainly a lot of RP opportunities out there in the GW2 world if you make the effort to find them and engage in them. That’s the MMO part. There are many skilled RPers out there who would play virtually any kind of storyline with you. I do think the game could do more to encourage and reward RP-ing, even with such basic things as letting people sit normally on chairs. But it’s out there and it’s pretty good.

Satans Chosen.1024:

Some of the later posts also bring up an important point. The mainstream notion of “role-playing” has not broken out of its limited definition in the last 40 years. Whatever personality or other variances are added, the vast majority of RPG both digital and not are based on killing things. It can be for a multitude of reasons and through very creative ways, but the core remains the same. That’s what many, probably most players want out of MMORPG like GW2, and I’ve come to accept that.

Besides, I am not sure some of the most fascinating roles in literature can even be made into games. Take Dune, how are you going to role-play legally a Bene Gesserit Breeding Mistress or a Tleilaxu Master in a game? It makes role playing a Ixian Fabricator or Caladan Fisherman appear simple and a basic soldier or even Sardaukar childish.

People have such limited notions of “history.” RPGs are based on fantasy fiction, in turn based on myth…in which all the heroes killed things. It’s a defining trait. They kill things in “Dune.” A lot. You can take the monster-slaying literally or you can take it metaphorically. You can emphasize it or de-emphasize it. But as long as our species exists, it’s going to be a core piece of narrative and character. I’m all for different types of narrative and RP, but it’s insanely myopic to say monster-slaying is some limitation rather than one of our most fundamental psychological expressions as human beings.

It would be great to have an RPG, much less MMORPG, that pulled this off to anyone’s satisfaction. We’re not there yet, but maybe one day we might be.

I’m a little surprised that the game never had a place for players to type out some biography bit or backstory for other players to see. But then, the personal story thing kinda fits everyone into one of three different backgrounds hailing from the same cultural city, so it pretty much makes exercising any imagination for your character’s background moot…

dirtyklingon.2918:

you missed somethign important OP.

the player isn’t the hero of gw2.

traehearne is.

So true and want of the lesser characters in my opinion. The hero, if not the player, should have been Tybalt. Great character and Charr hero is just epic

Satans Chosen.1024:

…To make a game diverse enough to include many different activities and deep enough that each is a viable playing choice is even harder than to make the game emotionally invested.

You describe almost perfectly what I consider the ideal game. Perhaps it is best that there is no “ideal” game yet. What will I look forward to in the future if one happen to appear?

What will you look forward to? The expansion of course!

Wow, thank you for these eloquent and thought-provoking replies.

@Ashes: I think you are probably right in that a silent protagonist would have helped to minimize the dominance of the writer’s version of the player hero over my own. I especially agree with your second point though – I think that’s an incredibly insightful suggestion. I feel that individual or party instancing removes everything that makes an MMO worthwhile, and really shifts your focus entirely to the quality of the scripted content you are consuming. I am with you in hoping there will be more opportunities for story instances similar to the tutorial sequences in the future.

@Satans Chosen: I absolutely agree with you that moving the player into more of an ‘observer’ role for most of the story would be an improvement, and probably reduce the dissonance between the generic hero template that speaks on my behalf me and my vision for my character. I think you’re also right though that it’s probably impractical at this point in the game.

While I’ve not yet found any MMO that hits quite all the right notes in terms of what I’m looking for, I can say that there are at least textual worlds out there where some of the things you’ve mentioned are possible. In some of the Iron Realms MUDs, for example, any character can purchase a tradeskill license for a particular craft, such as woodworking or tailoring. This allows them not only to produce standard crafted items by using stock recipes with basic commodities, just like in graphical MMOs, but with enough skill they can also choose to design new recipe patterns complete with their own custom descriptions and commodity costs. If a hefty fee is paid and the patterns are approved as meeting certain prescribed quality and balance standards, they receive a brand new, unique recipe that only they (or those they lease it to) can use to produce cosmetically different items that no-one else can offer. This deepens the crafting game immensely because not only are you adding fresh new armour and weaponry to the game, but it also allows for cartels to form, leasing arrangements to be made, and anyone to make their fortune through their ingenuity and creativity.

I adored these systems for how much engagement that player-created content added to the game, and I have been waiting for some interpretation of them in graphical MMOs ever since. I can’t believe that with all of the Foundries and housing systems out there already that the technology for some form of customization in graphical MMO crafting is out of reach. I also think just a few of these kinds of systems would go a long way to defusing the emphasis on everyone being the same warrior hero.

@elsbeth: While I disagree with most of your analysis, I think you bring up a good point in that there are many players who overcome the missing MMO mechanics with interactive, player-moderated RP. I think this is a great solution for those players who find this ‘free-form’ conversation style roleplay engaging.

Unfortunately, I’m not really that type of player. You could argue, for instance, that you don’t need health, damage, stats, skills and so on to moderate combat either – you could just have players imagine what they want to be doing to each other and type it out in a player-moderated exchange. I think personally though I’d find that the lack of any feedback mechanics and objective, world-based effects is a bit of a hollow experience in a commercial MMO. It’s completely as valid as a well-designed and balanced game-moderated combat system, but I suspect that I wouldn’t be the only one who would find a combat system that has no effect upon NPCs, other players or world-based events really doesn’t interest me terribly much.

It’s just not what I’m looking for. I’m hoping for more tools that I can use to create the character and story that I am most interested in, and for the generic warrior hero to step out of the way so I can do it.

I’ve never felt a connection to any character in a game, except for Mass Effect.

Roven Leafsong.8917:

I might elaborate a little on each of these points later on, but I wanted to add a quote that I think perfectly sums up what Guild Wars 2 hasn’t yet achieved, from some people who clearly know an awful lot about game design. This is from Jeff Grubb (The Emotional Connection in MMOs, emphasis mine):

Identification with your avatar is a key to emotional investment. To create that bond, a player has to evolve from “this is my character” to “this is me.” Some of that is done graphically, with customized appearance and equipment. But a big part of it is to create options that allow the player to engage and identify with his creation. While we work from the basic assumption of “I am a hero,” we provide enough variance to allow a variety of playing styles. In addition, those choices will have effects, ranging from how the story progresses to unique items within your home instance and even to conversations and scenes that reinforce your choices.

In addition to that, we have to consider the world around the character. Not only does the character have to be accessible but the world that character lives in needs to promote emotional investment.

I will keep waiting to see the meaningful variance in playing styles that Jeff describes, as I’m afraid that a few extra lines of pre-scripted dialogue and an item or two in a non-persistent instance doesn’t yet outweigh the monotony of being yet another one-dimensional warrior hero.

Oh, and just to elaborate briefly on one of those points which I think is incredibly important:

Power isn’t everything.

This is has got to be the biggest problem that afflicts all the modern MMOGs that have heavily adopted the Dikumud style of hack & slash gameplay mechanics, not just Guild Wars 2.

I strongly believe that character development does not have to equate to how powerful your character has become.

The level grind from 1 – 80, the gear grind from 1 – 80, the skill point grind from 1 – ~40, the crafting grind from 1 – 400, the personal story, dungeons – it’s all about becoming more powerful or getting items that make me more powerful. Why can’t I choose to develop my character in a different direction entirely other than how big my damage numbers are?

Maybe I want to take up an accredited profession well away from the ‘front lines’ and become a merchant? Maybe I want to specialise in a very esoteric area of spellcraft or martial proficiency, sacrificing my overall effectiveness in exchange for taking on a very uncommon but useful role in society? Maybe I want to express my creativity, principles or knowledge in a way that allows me to share and be recognised for my contributions? Maybe I want to join a particular village or city and set down roots, have a family, build a garden, or start a cult?

I know there are complaints about the ‘end-game’ not having enough progression, but I don’t think adding more tiers of grind for stats or cosmetic options will solve the underlying issue at least for myself. These solutions can only further delay the inevitable crash once the developer-fed content runs out. Almost the whole PvE game, like so many before it, is entirely based on ‘power-ups’ for your character. If the only thing that matters is power, then quite obviously once you no longer have meaningful options to increase that power you aren’t as motivated to play.

Please, please, please consider ways to allow players to grow their characters other than vertically up a power tree, right from the start of the game, so that we can start to make our own stories and content, and then perhaps finally the dreaded content-release/consumption mindset and cycle can be broken.

This … one of the best posts Ive seen.

But I think developers are now too lazy to add something different than numbers to items.
They could add more skills / more animations / more armor/weapons skins. Add better rewards to current dungeons (lodestones, etc.)

They failed.

Sirius.4510:

It would be great to have an RPG, much less MMORPG, that pulled this off to anyone’s satisfaction. We’re not there yet, but maybe one day we might be.

A very good point.

Single player RPGs are always ahead of the curve in graphics and mechanics compared to MMORPGs because they don’t have to worry about the complications of networking and servers and they don’t need to expend resources on such a wide array of content.

Yet have any single player games managed to accomplish what the OP is requesting? Has even Skyrim or Mass Effect managed to do it? Or are their heroes the same deadly killing machines we’ve seen before and which the OP seems to dislike so much?

I have not played enough single player games to answer but I that suspect no single player game has managed what the OP is suggesting. And that means the OP is getting way ahead of themselves.

We need to see if a single player game that can provide all the variety and choices they suggest before even consider seeing if they will work in an MMO.

It’s great to make a long post about all the things one wants in some perfect game, but considerations have to be made whether such a game is technologically and financially even possible.

I’ve seen suggestions like this from the MMO community and I can’t fathom how people actually think what is being proposed is even remotely possible.

We don’t have game systems so sophisticated that players can have infinite options that allow them to “set down roots, have a family, build a garden, or start a cult” as the OP suggests in addition to the typical choices of being fantasy hero if players so choose.

Someday we may have games that are that immersive and complex but it won’t happen today or any time soon. We’ll be lucky if it happens around the time we’re all playing with virtual reality helmets. Or more likely, by the time we’re all on holodecks.

See I never felt the whole hero thing. Look around and you see heroes all over the place. In that sense I feel rather average.

I do think though MMOs have funneled into the quest / kill / XP structure too much. Back in UO many people had “mule” characters who had very limited combat skills and had many maxxed crafting skills. With those crafting skills you sold items in your house or a player run town or mall. SWG had it as well. I think it would be a nice addition here – the idea of making a non-conbatant character who is still useful.

I think part of the problem was the decision to write my character into the cutscene, thus giving my character a voice and putting words in his mouth that in my own mind my character would never have spoken.

I think it may have been a better idea to have cutscenes that featured conversations your character is observing (but not actually participating in) or cutscenes in which a character delivers a monologue to you in terms of setting up backstory and giving you instructions, to which my character is assumed to respond in the manner he chooses following the scene.

Obviously, this solution would produce an awkward scene or two where it may appear odd that my character is never speaking, but I still have to say I would have responded better to that than to the hijacking of my character so that I have to listen to him blather on about how awesome and heroic he is.

Which is just dull.

Sad to say, my characters often seem like exactly the kind of people I make excuses to get away from at parties so I don’t have to listen to them stroke their own ego all night.

It’s very simple. Most people want to be heroes, want to kill the bad guy and save the princess. I like your ideas, it would indeed get me exited if implemented but deep inside, I still just want to be a hero and save the cute princess

DoctorOverlord.8620:

Sirius.4510:

It would be great to have an RPG, much less MMORPG, that pulled this off to anyone’s satisfaction. We’re not there yet, but maybe one day we might be.

A very good point.

Single player RPGs are always ahead of the curve in graphics and mechanics compared to MMORPGs because they don’t have to worry about the complications of networking and servers and they don’t need to expend resources on such a wide array of content.

Yet have any single player games managed to accomplish what the OP is requesting? Has even Skyrim or Mass Effect managed to do it? Or are their heroes the same deadly killing machines we’ve seen before and which the OP seems to dislike so much?

I have not played enough single player games to answer but I that suspect no single player game has managed what the OP is suggesting. And that means the OP is getting way ahead of themselves.

We need to see if a single player game that can provide all the variety and choices they suggest before even consider seeing if they will work in an MMO.

It’s great to make a long post about all the things one wants in some perfect game, but considerations have to be made whether such a game is technologically and financially even possible.

I’ve seen suggestions like this from the MMO community and I can’t fathom how people actually think what is being proposed is even remotely possible.

We don’t have game systems so sophisticated that players can have infinite options that allow them to “set down roots, have a family, build a garden, or start a cult” as the OP suggests in addition to the typical choices of being fantasy hero if players so choose.

Someday we may have games that are that immersive and complex but it won’t happen today or any time soon. We’ll be lucky if it happens around the time we’re all playing with virtual reality helmets. Or more likely, by the time we’re all on holodecks.

I’m one of the ones that put the time into developing my Mass Effect character, and his story relations with the others in my squad.

Needless to say, I died a little inside when I had to have Mordin die in the third one. That’s never happened in any other game before.

Roven Leafsong.8917:

The problem is that after a while, those childish notions of the idealised, romanticised fantasy hero become a little shallow.

Soooo much this. Words fail to quantify the amount of this.

But yeah I agree overall the setting leaves something to be desired. Story culmination just loses it’s value when heroism becomes the norm.

And yes that incident with Morden in ME3, sad thing. I more or less agreed with his view in 2 then suddenly he goes to a polar opposite viewpoint in 3 just like that. Needless to say I had to put him down.

When people say they want to play a merchant, or farmer, or something or other…. Why play a PvP game?

I mean you can be a farmer… go out and gather. (Do you want a farm? Go play WoW)

You can be a merchant… play the trading post (You want a shop too?)

You can add more to your character, its called RP. Find people you enjoy and RP with them and create your own adventures. But to expect that Anet would create dynamic stories for 5 different races, 2 different genders, with tons of different voice acting required, combined branching story lines…. Jeeeeeeeeez sounds like a project worthy of Fable or Skyrim.

Its just not completely possible to bring all at once, especially when im sure they’re putting more focus on to the actual gameplay.

Now a previous poster mentioned the “Silent Protagonist” and i agree with him. I think anet could take a tip from that and actually add onto the story through Story-Arc like mini-story lines.

Example: The Dominion of Winds opens and while you have mini-dungeons/other activities. Anet could add a mini-personal story in which your character experiences so of the problems/hardships/conflicts that the Tengu have. You can learn about their race, history, and future. And that would be enough. To have some really interesting story. Personally, i dont need a protaganist as active in the story as much as i like the general detail put into the lore.

I agree that the story gets repetitive and predictable. Yes my character is going to go save ur wife. Yes my character is going to go take care of the threat to the village. Yes my character will make a dangerous trip to this area and do something. Yes my character will listen to what you say and agree with you wholeheartedly.

We know. Its our avatars JOB lol. Do i need a little sound-bite of him telling me so…. naaaahhhh

Give me details, give me lore spoilers, give me sneak-peaks, give me easter eggs, give me humor (MAKE IT FUNNY AND PEOPLE WILL LOVE IT FOREVER, just because its a serious zomg-the-world-is-going-to-die-by-dragons kinda place doesnt mean you cant make the guy behind the screen laugh his butt off the best you can). Give me depth in the world.

Another thing…. the dialog screens…. My character (looking sexyyy) is just standing they’re talking to another guy awkwardly twitching every couple seconds…. why?

You guys have such beautiful art, flaunt it. Save yourself the pain of doing the CG on the cutscenes and flash art work depicting the area/story/situation/conflict that you are currently facing. Add in some deep or cleverly accented voice AND BAM. Story immersion, interest within the story/art, easier.

Make those cut scenes in game. Send chat bubbles and what not, no need to flash to a whole new screen to show me what i was basically staring at just a second ago but at a “different angle”

The world should be about itself, and how your just living it in experiencing it changing around you. Making about the avatar is hard because everyone will have a different opinion on what they’d wish they’re character could do, but we all know they’re going to to from Point A to Point B anways if they want to beat the mission so why draw it out between ur character like hes got a say in it hahaha.

And you can still make it dynamic fairly easily. By adding either random events to pop up in the middle of the story (by random i mean, it can or cannot pop in the story or maybe one of 3 could chance to pop in the story).

Example: You start in point A. You need to get to point B to do yada yada yada. So dynamic events could change the way you’d have to get there. Maybe some get a giant tree that the enemy chops down in order to block the road to you and you have to find another way. Maybe a innocent girl pops up and need a sudden rescue but causes you to stray from your original path and or leads you into a trap. The story could still end the same way each and every time by starting at point A and ending at point B. But like all good trips… it aint about the destination, its about the journey there.

my 2 cents

DoctorOverlord.8620:

Sirius.4510:

Someday we may have games that are that immersive and complex but it won’t happen today or any time soon. We’ll be lucky if it happens around the time we’re all playing with virtual reality helmets. Or more likely, by the time we’re all on holodecks.

I’m one of the ones that put the time into developing my Mass Effect character, and his story relations with the others in my squad.

Needless to say, I died a little inside when I had to have Mordin die in the third one. That’s never happened in any other game before.

I am not saying that current single player games have not become very good at telling dramatic and emotional stories. I think video games have been able to match storytelling found in novels and movies.

But storytelling is not what the OP is suggesting. They are suggesting a game that has more options and choices than any program, no matter how sophisticated, could possibly handle.

Using the OP’s own examples, one was they want to start a family. Think about the complexity of a game that would be needed simulate pregnancy and raising an NPC child while still maintaining the same emotional impact you found while playing Mass Effect.

Or the OP says they want the option to start a cult. Think about the complexity needed to simulate psychologically manipulating NPCs into following you. And what it would take to have emotional impact in a way completely different from the first example of raising a family.

Then think about the infinity of other choices that other players can dream up for their own stories and their own ‘heroes’.

This isn’t a realistic suggestion for any game, either technologically or financially. That’s not to say game developers should not continue to push boundaries and evolve their games. But the suggestions should at least have some grounding in reality.

Yet I constantly see ideas like this brought up again and again in the MMO community. Some seem to think that because MMOs are called ‘virtual worlds’ that MMOs have the capability to become complete world simulators. We are not there yet and we will not be there for a long time to come.

I kinda wanted to be the antihero or maybe a turncoat. I would like to have the option to serve Traehearne up on a plate and stab him in the back and get in cahoots with the dragons.
I am not sure what it is but I am left a little empty or unsatisfied with things in total. Overall it does seem well bland and stereotypical.
Missing that spark that would kitten is the best way to describe it.

Extremely valid posts, and 100% agreed, except it doesn’t matter. You’re not the hero. Some random twig who hijacks your storyline is the hero.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

Using the OP’s own examples, one was they want to start a family. Think about the complexity of a game that would be needed simulate pregnancy and raising an NPC child while still maintaining the same emotional impact you found while playing Mass Effect.

Or the OP says they want the option to start a cult. Think about the complexity needed to simulate psychologically manipulating NPCs into following you. And what it would take to have emotional impact in a way completely different from the first example of raising a family.

Then think about the infinity of other choices that other players can dream up for their own stories and their own ‘heroes’.

This isn’t a realistic suggestion for any game, either technologically or financially. That’s not to say game developers should not continue to push boundaries and evolve their games. But the suggestions should at least have some grounding in reality.

As for those ideas you pointed out specifically, it wouldn’t be that difficult to implement a simplified version of them into a system like Gw2. Diversify something like the Heroes system from the original Guild Wars or Ranger pets and voila; you have a companion.

A basic system like in the original Fable for marriage would be easily viable in MMO’s. If you get married to an NPC, they would move in to a players house (would need an instanced zone or something for player housing) and have a new randomly generated NPC take their place.

Example: players could build a relationship with NPCs by selecting certain options while conversing with them and gain points with them in predesignated categories (something like “Respect, Fear, Avoidance, Attraction” would work well). Build up enough points in the attraction category with a specific NPC to have a “proposal” option pop up.

It would be similar if you wanted to make a cult; instead of building up “attraction” points with an NPC you would need to build up certain amounts of “Fear” and “Respect” points with a specific NPC to gain an option to have them follow you.

Maybe even have craftable gifts for interaction with NPCs too, and add a bit of flair to crafting.

Sure it would be just a few scripted options and wouldn’t be entirely deep or anything (something like the original Fable comes to mind with the family idea; give gifts to NPCs, enough rep to marry and voila your character is hitched; you can even have a kid lol), but its perfectly viable with today’s tech costs very little to do.

Also…

Auesis.7301:

Extremely valid posts, and 100% agreed, except it doesn’t matter. You’re not the hero. Some random twig who hijacks your storyline is the hero.

This is so true ^
What does traehearne even do? He seems more like your adviser or receptionist than anything leader like…

Personally, I wish I would have been just another marching man in the battle against the dragons (more of the sword and sorcery fantasy type than the “Hero whom saves the world” feel); being the “Commander” as the hero in a game is just so overused.. so much for Anet wanting to make a “personal story.” It started out decent, and went downhill quickly =/

I thought they would have done more with the earlier parts of the story and the Orders… seems like they kind of rushed it.

I don’t know about you guys but I never wanted to be a hero.

I feel like RPGs initially stemmed from a group of people who were beaten down socially. These games (Starting with DnD and the like) kind of acted as a way for them to escape society’s judgmental eye and become the hero they always felt like they were.

Though I can definitely relate to that demographic, I have never had the desire of being a hero. I always just enjoyed being part of a team. A useful member. A faithful sidekick. A Brother-in-arms.

I think the design flaw in GW2’s story is just that – we’re forced to be a HERO! When heroic deeds really come from the choices we make as opposed to what has been scripted for us. In WvW, I felt like a hero when I saw my guildie down and I lept from the castle’s battlements and revived him just as the enemy zerg got within range.

A side-note: The in-game cinematics take away from what could be good character development. The dialogue is there and the reading is fine, but what we end up seeing is an awkward, lifeless play with a pretty backdrop. Arenanet, I am a videographer/cinematographer. I will fly out there and mocap everything and animate all the cameras myself for free. I’m serious. The content is good, the delivery is not.

@DoctorOverlord: I understand your point about the practicality of any suggestion and take that on board, but I think you may be extrapolating quite a way from what I’ve actually said.

Why do any of these immersive persistent world systems need to be precisely simulated with complex NPC AI and endless decision trees to generate super-realistic behaviour? Emergent gameplay relies on very simple mechanics and tools that the players themselves then combine to form a new experience – it doesn’t all have to be entirely generated in advance by the server, and even if it were I would suspect that that would cause many of the same problems we see now.

A simple analogy is that it might not be feasible to accurately determine the precise aerodynamics which govern the path of a wooden arrow, accounting for wind resistance and elevation, and then calculate the penetration depth against armour, clothing and skin at the point of impact. That doesn’t mean there are technological limitations that prevent archery from being feasible, it just means that a very simplified model or representation is used instead. That simplification depends on what you are likely to want to achieve by shooting an arrow, and therefore how that mechanism should interact with the world and people around you.

Similarly, I don’t think you actually have to simulate a developing fetus in order to have a family or lineage system in an MMO – especially if it involves other players (as I would hope any such system would). You don’t have to dynamically generate phenomenally complex AI to have another player or an NPC join or support your cult or faction in at least some tangible way, and exactly how that is modeled will depend entirely on what you might want to do with your followers and allies.

Other games have been able to achieve some of these things already, and I think ArenaNet clearly has such a wealth of extremely talented artists, designers and programmers that it cannot possibly be beyond their ability.

Hear hear! Well said Sir… While it may be true that striving to achieve what you’re saying is looking far into the future of gaming I have recently revisited The Witcher 2 ankittenhoroughly enjoying the tough moral choices that have to be made. While the game has no real “progression” as such it keeps me thoroughly enthralled with a more “mature” approach to the hero archetype.

I’ve also recently finished episodes 3&4 of The Walking Dead and have to take my hat off. I’ve never been so emotionally invested in a game before.

I would love to ditch the shiny facade of traditional fantasy and see Tyria take on a darker undertone. Perhaps one day we will have an “adult” MMO I’m still sad that GW2 didn’t live up to the potential in my mind.

My mind is absolutely boggled that some people chose Kvothe as an example of a character with depth. It had been a long time since I had read something so full of stereotypes, shallow characters, and teenage boy wish fulfillment when I read Rothfuss’ two books on someone’s recommendation.

That aside, it’ll be a great day when an MMORPG can offer us truly deep stories. Single player can manage it, but it’s hard to imagine MMOs doing so in their current state.

I don’t believe it to be able to be implemented but I would like a a rocket powered motorbike where the handgrips are in fact bio-organic-whiskey-dispensing-micro-stills shaped like giant, bouncing bewbs… and active the “Retractable Unicorn Horn Lazer”, and “Boastful Fighter Animal Magnetism” modules with a pinch…

I remember a motorbike back when they were text based that had whiskey dispensers, and I know somewhere I’ve seen bewbs – the rest could be done with a few sacrifices to accomodate the tech, you know – flash light and duct tape might work as a basic module instead of the lazer, just give me something to point at people and turn on.

Sure my engineers tell me that the basic research and proof of concept tech is a long way off, but kitten I can dream. I know a product that is motorbike with a super-bewb shaped hydration pack, mounted fixed-lazer, and comes with a case of whiskey – I’ll just pop over to their forum and explain how dissapointing their product is.

@thisolderhead: I had some trouble following a few of the sentences in your reply, so I don’t really know if I understood you correctly. Were you using sarcasm to equate implementing lewd imagery, motorbikes and beer into the game with any attempt to shift towards more immersive, flexible character choices and systems in GW2?

I like how GW2 never place you as the Godly hero of Salvation like most generic RPG does.

Each part of the Personal Story focuses on a different Hero in the game..

(Personal Issue Story) – 1 member of Destiny Edge (depending on your race)

(Order Story)- Your Mentor (depending on your Order)

(Orr Story)- Trahearne

The Personal Story seems to focus on bring a new Hero into the story for each story Part of a Story Act while our character just experience the events of that part of the story through his or her own eyes we know as Personal Story.

We can expect the future personal Story to be like this once Anet begins expanding the Personal Story with New NPCs in each Act.