Guild Wars 2

I am relatively new to the game. I have played around with a few of the races, watched the opening intros. While gameplay seems fine, the fluff surrounding the game needs work.
Why is everything so happy? Seems to me every story I have watched so far is a hero saving the world. I want to be a bad guy. Why is my thief or necro a hero? They should be shunned by the common folk of the world if not outright attacked by guards if they reveal themselves. I want to play a dark knight character and help the downfall of the human races. I want to be a Charr and eat humans and norn and have the midget big eared guys for dessert. As a tree dude, I want to be part of the nightmare court and help corrupt the forest. Why are we forced to be goody little two shoes characters? Yeah one can RP as a bad guy but all the quests and storylines go the other way. “I am Dorn the Conquorer, eater of worlds, desolator of cities, Ally to the Centaur, but here, let me help you put out that hay fire those evil bandits lit up in your field.” Wheres the option to kill the woman and set the windmill on fire depriving the great city of ground grain? Grrr We need an adult MMO that lets people be what they choose, not what is scripted.

My biggest complaint so far.

Did you play Guild Wars? If not you’re are not getting the full story.
Though GW2 does touch on certain aspects of the original, it doesn’t tell that story.
Personally I think you’re doing yourself a disservice by not having played the original game.
And to be honest, being a thief or Necro doesn’t automatically = bad or evil, after all Robin hood was a thief and Merlin was described as a Necromancer (amongst other things)

Guild Wars is and always will be a story about hero’s.

It’s not about conflicting sides, its about the banding together of various races to defeat a common enemy (the elder dragons).

Firstly, story elements allowing you to choose random acts of violence that would tend to imply your character is a sociopath don’t make a game an adult mmo. An mmo with a story about heroes acting to save Tyria while dealing with political and diplomatic issues would be an adult mmo, simply because children wouldn’t be able to follow the complexities of the plot.

Guild Wars is all about heroes and always has been.

What you’re looking for is swtor with a sith character. If they were to try to add that here it wouldn’t just be the personal story, the hearts and events would make no sense either. They’d have to practically re-do the entire game. It would’nt make the slightest bit of sense to have me trying to put out fires in a village and you trying to light them again. They’d have to then enable world pvp or something.

Read the title and thought it was referring to the night cycle looking exactly like the day cycle, but with a shaded sky. Night SHOULD be darker, by the way.

To the post, I somewhat agree. While I don’t think the we should be able to play the “dark side” (someone else can make that game — Oh, they have??), the stories should be darker, with more moral dilemmas and more elements that would appeal to adult gamers. Right now, I feel every storyline I’ve played through has received a PG rating and they just aren’t very engaging for me — nor, I suspect, for may other adults.

I actually commented on this earlier today in another thread and used the story of Althea from GW1 to make my point. That’s a story that has stuck with me for years, even if it was told through just a few quests. But the meat of the story was pretty nasty and made a huge impact on me as a player. So much so that there’s nothing from any other game I’ve played that stands out so clearly. GW2’s stories need a lot more of that.

But I’m still content to be the hero/heroine in them.

The game you are looking for is called Fable. It is also called Black and White. Dungeon Keeper (no choice there, though, and it’s old enough that I doubt it runs on anything). Any of the Elder Scrolls games from Morrowind to Skyrim. This game also goes by the name Grand Theft Auto. It goes by a dozen other different names as well. It even exists in many different mediums – it was called Dungeons and Dragons before computers were a common household item.

This game, however, is not GW2. There is nothing inherently wrong with the game you have described – but you cannot make a game that is every thing to every person. GW2 has chosen a different course, and if it were to try to adopt to your preferences, it would no longer be GW2. This would be as monumental a change in the game as making it single player or making it an XBOX game, perhaps more so.

In my experience the people who desperately wants to play evil characters are almost never adults

The option to be bad or evil was deliberately not provided by Anet. Their story is about saving the world from evil. This would be more palatable if your character could sound less brainwashed into serving good.

Sadly, engaging story writing isn’t Anet’s strong point.

In the options menu you can adjust the gamma slider to the left, it will make the game darker.

Campana.9216:

The option to be bad or evil was deliberately not provided by Anet. Their story is about saving the world from evil. This would be more palatable if your character could sound less brainwashed into serving good.

Sadly, engaging story writing isn’t Anet’s strong point.

They’re capable of it, they just didn’t do it in GW2. For the most part, the characters aren’t that memorable either, which makes it hard to care what happens to them. Except for Tybalt. /salute

Its rather annoying to be a shiny good guy as is everyone else. Cant be a merc looking for payday, cant be a real necromancer, cant be an assassin. Sure the mainstream world is about saving the day, but where are the profiteers, where are the people who work for themselves for their own benefit. I much more enjoy the greys, than the flat white and only white, the only black are the bad guys in game. Its the greys that make a compelling storyline. EQ1 is the only game so far that I have played that really does the bad guys right and makes the game make sense. You have the good races and the bad races, and some that have both in one. The white, black, and greys. Having just the white, and only the whites makes the overall fairly dull. I will play it a bit more and see if I can get anything out of it, but right now I am rather bummed.

Whats the deal with the so called dynamic combat system thats so revolutionary? It still seems exactly like any other mmo. Auto-attack with some bonus powers. Have designers not figured out that that mode of combat is <yawn> … sorry just woke up, was talking about combat, right? Really, Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls series(oddly enough they are de-evolving the online version back to akittenauto-attack system) and to a lesser extent Tera are the only games to evolve combat to a fun and interactive experience that actually involves some skill and not a mind numbing auto-attack and wait for battle to be over type game. Hello designers, it isnt 1998 anymore. We can go outside the box and have a little more interactiveness in a game. A target reticule for shooting and figuring out where the target is in relation to your weapons reach isnt new or hard to program, I think Wolfenstein did it 20 years ago.

Sorry just a rant on the inability of mmorpgs to evolve into something more interactive and less boring. The capability is totally there but the designers refuse to use it for some reason. grrr

Are there any RP servers?

Tropheus.7436:

Its rather annoying to be a shiny good guy as is everyone else. Cant be a merc looking for payday, cant be a real necromancer, cant be an assassin. Sure the mainstream world is about saving the day, but where are the profiteers, where are the people who work for themselves for their own benefit. I much more enjoy the greys, than the flat white and only white, the only black are the bad guys in game. Its the greys that make a compelling storyline. EQ1 is the only game so far that I have played that really does the bad guys right and makes the game make sense. You have the good races and the bad races, and some that have both in one. The white, black, and greys. Having just the white, and only the whites makes the overall fairly dull. I will play it a bit more and see if I can get anything out of it, but right now I am rather bummed.

Whats the deal with the so called dynamic combat system thats so revolutionary? It still seems exactly like any other mmo. Auto-attack with some bonus powers. Have designers not figured out that that mode of combat is <yawn> … sorry just woke up, was talking about combat, right? Really, Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls series(oddly enough they are de-evolving the online version back to akittenauto-attack system) and to a lesser extent Tera are the only games to evolve combat to a fun and interactive experience that actually involves some skill and not a mind numbing auto-attack and wait for battle to be over type game. Hello designers, it isnt 1998 anymore. We can go outside the box and have a little more interactiveness in a game. A target reticule for shooting and figuring out where the target is in relation to your weapons reach isnt new or hard to program, I think Wolfenstein did it 20 years ago.

Sorry just a rant on the inability of mmorpgs to evolve into something more interactive and less boring. The capability is totally there but the designers refuse to use it for some reason. grrr

Are there any RP servers?

idk man. The combat in this game is pretty action orientated. It depends a lot on position. If I’m firing my arrows at a target and someone or something gets in my line of fire, my arrows will stop hitting my initial target. (Without piercing arrows of course)

Plus you can dodge any attack. Not just circles on the ground. If you time it right you will ‘evade’ attacks.

Liarian.4891:

In my experience the people who desperately wants to play evil characters are almost never adults

Only if they equate “dark” with jerk. You can get some interesting conflicted characters but they are hard to write and frankly out of the scope of an MMO where you are trying to build a community.

Just popped in to answer the role-play server question. There are no actual RP server open but the RPers from the North American section made Tarnished Coast their unofficial RP server of GW2 while the EU ones made Piken Square their own.

Calavera.1086:

In the options menu you can adjust the gamma slider to the left, it will make the game darker.

This was my first thought at the title…

But to the OP, while I agree that playing a thief or necromancer as a hero feels odd, it is just the direction the game set up for. It’s a hero’s game. Other titles on the market work in the “good/evil” points.

Goth is so 90s.

What’s the purpose of being evil or dark?

In the context of the GW2 storyline, it would go against the sense of self-preservation to be evil – to cut to the logical conclusion it would be faster for those characters to simply jump off a cliff. Perhaps they did that… and they did it in Orr… hence all the Risen.

That said, there are nuances of profiteering and those taking advantage of the chaos.

I don’t feel so much like a hero as I do like a regular schlep.

Venator.5780:

What’s the purpose of being evil or dark?

In the context of the GW2 storyline, it would go against the sense of self-preservation to be evil – to cut to the logical conclusion it would be faster for those characters to simply jump off a cliff. Perhaps they did that… and they did it in Orr… hence all the Risen.

That said, there are nuances of profiteering and those taking advantage of the chaos.

I don’t feel so much like a hero as I do like a regular schlep.

There is actually a heart in the sylvari starting zone where you can go ahead and act like the Nightmare Court but it will eventually kill you.

theerrantventure.9185:

Calavera.1086:

In the options menu you can adjust the gamma slider to the left, it will make the game darker.

This was my first thought at the title…

But to the OP, while I agree that playing a thief or necromancer as a hero feels odd, it is just the direction the game set up for. It’s a hero’s game. Other titles on the market work in the “good/evil” points.

Just as a quick comment… one of the sweetest characters in the novels so far (Killeen) happens to be a sylvari necromancer. According to her story in Ghosts of Ascalon, she became a necromancer because death was a mistery to her race, they knew they could die of injuries or illness, but they had no idea yet whether they even aged or could die of old age at all.

It was a bit disconcerting to other characters to hear this sweet sylvari ask with a smile in her face whether they minded her using their corpses if they died, and was quite curious about why were they so concerned about it at all..

Will you toon be “darker” no, unless you role play with you guild or something.

I do give my toons my own “personality traits” when I create them just to add some flavor…. like my Silvary thief joining the Priory because “with this whole war against Zhaitan thye might not miss 1 or 2 magical items that slip in my bag by mistake…” but in the end Pesonal Story is about you being a hero.

About he game being Darker I do suggest Silvary even more than Charr, seriosly those plants are ruthless but in a disturbing way becasue they don’t seem to know that they are being ruthless. Like ordering to cut the head of a Nightmare court bad guy and putting it on stake to warn other Silvary about joining the Nightmare court… I did not expect that (no images it was just a voice over).

Play SWTOR. You can be a complete baby eating, kitten stomping, psychopath who kills almost everyone you come across or you can be so good they may think you’re Jesus Christ reborn.

first of all, an “adult” game is certainly not being defined as a game where you can do silly acts of “evilness” for its own sake (though that is also not a trait that would define it as immature). In case you have not noticed, the game has an underlying story. When the world is about the be devoured by some ancient evil, even bad people have a good reason to fight for the right cause. The evil factions of the various races are mostly allready tainted by that influence, as far as I understand. Charr are not raving mad.. well, madcats, but have a civilization. Necromancers were never evil in the gw lore.

And regarding your complaints about the combat system… You cite kitten SKYRIM?? The Elder Scrolls series has a lot of good things, but combat certainly is not one of them. There is no feel to it, controlling the weapons does not feel different from moving the mouse over your desktop. If there was any great combat in a rpg game it would be Dragon´s Dogma, but that is simply not made for the masses of MMORPG fans as it allready requires too much beat-em-up skill for most rpg lovers (no, I do not intend this to be an insult, these are just two different genres and not everyone who likes rpgs also likes Street Fighter kinda games).

As already stated, ArenaNet have made a conscious decision that this is a game about “good guys”. It’s possibly to be a good guy who uses icky powers in a good cause, and it’s possible to be a “good guy” who is WAY too fond of using violence and intimidation… again, though, in a good cause. Ultimately, though, it’s about your character being one of the heroes who steps up to the plate and faces the evils threatening to destroy the world. sorry, but you don’t get 100% freedom in choosing your character’s stories.

Having said that, I’m quite happy with a “no evil characters” policy,. Evil player characters in RPGs tend to go one of three ways.
The first, as mentioned by Nageth, is where “evil” means “licence to be a jerk”. Usually used as a fig leaf by griefers who claim they were “just roleplaying”. Can do without those people.
Secondly, there’s the “evil is sexy/ooh, ain’t I BAD!” crowd. Evil isn’t actually evil, it’s code for rebelling against society’s norms. This sort of ‘evil’ character is too busy wearing long, flowing black satin outfits and declaiming equally long, flowing sophomoric dialogues about relative morality to actually do anything truly evil.
Finally, you’ve got people who manage to create a truly believable character who does horrific things (i.e. is actually evil in practice instead of just carrying a Chaotic Evil Club membership card in case a passing paladin asks for his ID). This character might be insane, amoral or just willing to do whatever is necessary to serve what he sees as a ‘greater good’ – but whatever the reason, there is a reason for his actions. Unfortunately, people who can write or roleplay such a character are few and far between. The benefit of allowing these few their freedom unfortunately is outweighed by the downside of having to deal with the jerks and poseurs in the other two categories.

Don’t drown in the sea of fanboy screams.

This game is about as dark and brooding as a Barbie Princess movie.

That said, I HIGHLY recommend the Witcher and Witcher 2 – if you’re looking for a dark fantasy RPG.

ANet said a while ago that being “evil” won’t be a possibility. They want their players to be heroes. Seems to work out better for most people that way.

My girlfriend doesn’t like it a whole lot either, but then again, she was the type to just do the Dark Brotherhood line in Skyrim and just call it quits afterward because she “did everything she wanted to do.”

Gave.9408:

Don’t drown in the sea of fanboy screams.

This game is about as dark and brooding as a Barbie Princess movie.

That said, I HIGHLY recommend the Witcher and Witcher 2 – if you’re looking for a dark fantasy RPG.

Yeah, even if we accept the whole, “Anet only wants us to play heroic characters!” argument, there’s still the fact that heroics require risk, pain and sacrifice. Without conflict, there are no heroics, and the only conflict any character really deals with in this game is the harrowing choice of, “which instrument of death do I want to use today?”

I have no trouble at all RPing my character’s darker tendencies.

Kana.6793:

…If they were to try to add that here it wouldn’t just be the personal story, the hearts and events would make no sense either. They’d have to practically re-do the entire game. It would’nt make the slightest bit of sense to have me trying to put out fires in a village and you trying to light them again. They’d have to then enable world pvp or something.

This.

The entire dynamic/heart system and story is built around a simple concept: do smaller good in the world on your way to doing bigger good (in the story).

The “hero’s journey” may or may not be an ethical choice by the developers, but it certainly seems to be a mechanical/game play one.

it’s deliberately designed this way, they’ve always said it would be a game (exclusively) about heroes. if you can’t live with that, you should’ve done a little more research before purchasing the game.

our hero our hero the dragonborn comes oops wrong game

I agree to an extent. At the very least, I’d love to see more morally grey and mature themes touched upon. For example, why do my humans automatically fawn over Queen Jennah? Why is there no option to support Minister Caudecus? It’d tie in very well with the subtle political scheming supposedly going on throughout Kryta, yet instead we’re forced to agree with and aid everything Queen Jennah does.

I also believe that the Order of Whispers should have been darker. We got Tybalt (comic relief) instead of ruthless assassination missions for the betterment of Tyria. It’s not that the game lacks darker, mature themes either. There’s plenty going on in the background. Yet for some strange reason a lot of them go unaddressed – seemingly in favour of ensuring that the somewhat false image of a united Tyria is preserved.

So far they’ve >:|killed every character I like, so I’d say yes, it gets darker. Plus, Risen Quaggans, come on.

@Gave: Jesus Christ, now you are allready a “fanboy” when you do not agree the game needs an evil playable faction. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?

Yes, I too wish it had more “darkness”/soul in it’s core. Everything is too Merry-go-Round, pride, justice, honor, blah blah blah… It’s a game made for kids. Simple as that.

Homer: made for Kids. Arthurian legend: made for kids. Gilgamesh epos: made for kids. You are right, our culture really only began with the Punisher and the Crow.

Algreg.3629:

Homer: made for Kids. Arthurian legend: made for kids. Gilgamesh epos: made for kids. You are right, our culture really only began with the Punisher and the Crow.

Whose culture? Not mine, I am neither American nor British (though I believe both films originated from the US, not quite sure).

I am not talking short-term shallow blockbuster movies and plots. I am talking Isaac Asimov level (level mind you, not style). I am talking original, innovative, unpredicted, well thought through stories and plots.

If I have to make a popular TV show reference in order to clear things up – the TV remake of Battlestar Galactica was a pretty good mix of popular/instant/recycled plot and originality, featuring fairly gritty/mature atmosphere. Mix of plenty of philosophical questions/dilemmas which often arise for those who are able to spot them, emotions etc.

Well, I am not really keen on playing a really bad character but I would love if the personal story would add more shades of grey. For example I made a human Thief, poor childhood, brought up on the street. The first thing she said was something along the line: “Oh it was not easy for me growing up like that, beeing let down by everyone. But now I’ll go and serve my people.” I was like: “WHAT?”

It just didn’t seem credible for me. I would have loved it way better if she was someone just trying to go her way and stumbeling into that whole hero-thing. I went back to character creation and made another char because she seemed so fake, so I can’t say if there comes a bit more depth to the story by time.