Guild Wars 2

Hello, everyone. As an aspiring young writer, I am interested in seeing the story of my favorite game expand and evolve into something better and more interesting. As such, I would like to bring forth my idea for the future of the Pact.

Trahearne has died

It was a great blow to the Pact when insert next campaign’s dragon here launched an ambush on the Marshall. He was corrupted and inevitably slain by his second in command (the player character). The Pact crumbled under the blow. Each Order blamed each other (and themselves) for his death and separated, leaving Tyria vulnerable.

The Orders Re-visited

Your job, Commander insert your name, is to re-unite the Pact, starting with your own Order. You will inspire new recruits, sway dissenters, go on dangerous missions, and save the other Orders from certain demise, solidifying yourself as a leader that all Orders view as one of their own. You will become the new Marshall.

But you won’t do it alone

You will need a partner. You will need an equal to replace the one you lost on Claw Island. They will fight for you as you set forth to re-unite Tyria against the dragons, eventually becoming your second-in-command.

For the Vigil

Your partner will be Dougal Keane, the hero of the Ghosts of Ascalon novel. Without him, there would be no peace between the humans and the charr. In other words, he is canonically the 2nd most important character in the Guild Wars 2 universe, behind Trahearne (the 3rd most if you count your player character).

Dire times have forced Dougal out of retirement and, as such, he brings his sword, his talents as a Thief, and copious amounts of wit and knowledge to your service.

His new role as your partner will increase continuity between Guild Wars 2 and its Ghosts of Ascalon novel. It will also make good use of a character who is criminally under-employed at the current time.

For the Order of Whispers

Your partner will be Demmi Beetlestone. She is not the same helpless young woman that she was when she was saved from pirates and the Ministry Guard by you and Tybalt. Through the Order, she has blossomed into an intelligent and capable Agent who is eager to impress and work with her savior.

Her position as your partner will increase continuity within your own personal story and allow you to see the positive consequences of your own actions.

For the Priory

Your partner will be Ogden Stonehealer. He is the last known remaining Dwarf (and one of the oldest beings on Tyria). He was one of the heroes who defeated the Great Destroyer in 1078 AE. With the ancient healing arts of a Monk, supplemented with the new innovations of Guardian magic, he will prove to be a valuable ally.

His position as your partner will increase continuity between Guild Wars 2 and Guild Wars 1, even allowing for an easy way for Arenanet to introduce non-GW1 players to GW1 events and/or introduce new lore and events that occurred between games.

I love you!
Yep, I think that would be a good angle to replace Trahearne, and rebuild the pact forces, AND yes, definitely take Dougal out of Fort Marriner is a good idea. ^^

Some really nice ideas. But…

Why not get away from the Pact, Trahearne, and Orr for a while? Why don’t we go on an expedition… to the Crystal Desert.

Augury Rock, still tingling with remnants of the gods’ magic, has become a haven for Elonian refugees (human, heket, and centaur) fleeing from good old Palawa Joko. The Rock, abandoned by the Forgotten, becomes the city for the Crystal Desert.

At the same time, you’re helping out your order by messing with mr. Kralk: the Vigil wants you to lead a forward assault on the Brand, the Priory is investigating the Rock’s ancient magic, and the Order of Whispers needs you to steal a powerful artifact from Kralk’s lair.

Bad things start happening. The Order of Whisper’s plan leads to a massive Branded attack on Augury Rock. No matter what order you belong to, you have to deal with this new threat.

Oh yeah, and Faolain shows up, and steals that precious artifact.

After a while of hanging around in the desert, you get the terrible news: Trahearne is dead. etc, etc

Just an idea. Hanging around with the Pact all the time would start to get annoying.

Likin’ this. A lot.

Mostly because Demi Beetlestone >>>>> Trahearne.

In general though, I really wish our decisions had more of a noticeable effect on the game world. =\

Honestly, given that we have the Pact in the North and can now handle Kralk in the Crystal Desert, I’d like to see how Anet would handle a true diverging story. You can choose which dragon to go after next and your story will have similar stages of plot development to each other depending on who—Jormag or Kralk— with different situations.

Basically, we would be fighting two dragons at the same time and it’d allow for some believability that we’re ALL heroes in this all. Sure, our stories are the same, but we’re fighting on different fronts.

Of course, mayb my idea seems a bit silly and could be explained a lot better if I were good at explaining.

Trahearne doesn’t need to be killed, he already is retired at the end of the current story, or close to it. I think people confuse the terms Hero and leader.

What couldve been better in the storyline however was that Trahearne was tagging along every so often, instead of letting us handle the hero side of things. As we had a babysit. A hero should be more independent, doesn’t need to be a leader, in my view.
Actually I wouldn’t mind if Trahearne kept leading the pact, as long as he doesn’t tag along every other mission as if we’re not up for the task.

In fact, I would rather go back to a position where we are free of responsibilities and feel more like we’re helping out because we chose to instead of “because we belong to this and this order and then this and this organisation”.

It basically pidgeonholed us into General of the pact troops, with very limited view of what other operations were going on. It surely wasnt being second in command that irked me. Trahearne was the logical choice for leading the pact. But as a second in command we basically didn’t have any clue what was going on, NPCs we met in the open world itself never addressed us accordingly, even where events were pretty much side missions important to the success of the pact.

It’s like you’re leading troops that magically get orders from somewhere that is not you. It was strange that we as second in command knew less than some of the lesser NPC commanders.

I’d rather find out the various Order mentors managed to survive. I don’t care which or whose orifice the story is pulled from; I want it to happen.

No character can make me genuinely smile and yearn to choke her to death the way Sieran can.

Maligne.6182:

I’d rather find out the various Order mentors managed to survive. I don’t care which or whose orifice the story is pulled from; I want it to happen.

No character can make me genuinely smile and yearn to choke her to death the way Sieran can.

I hear you, bro. I miss Forgal, but it would take one hell of a Deus Ex Machina to bring him back, and it would really cheapen his sacrifice.

The problem isn’t that they killed lovable characters – it’s that they didn’t give us new lovable characters to fill the void. Furthermore, they didn’t even mourn the passing of our mentors significantly enough.

I haven’t seen the mentor for the Vigil, yet, but Sieran and Tybalt are, to me, the only light in the darkness of a story that has, from the very beginning, made me want to put my foot through the monitor. I don’t feel like a hero--hell, I don’t even feel like a sidekick. I feel like a fanfic author’s poorly-written self-insert.

The "sacrifice" itself didn’t strike me as making a bit of sense, either; it felt extremely contrived. The island’s toast and everyone’s being mowed down by undead that are being launched over the freaking walls. What, exactly, is one person going to do to delay that horde even if he/she started fighting from the very beginning and didn’t wait until being completely surrounded?

Like I said: I don’t care who it comes from--start digging through orifices for a plot (it’s not like it’ll be much of a stretch at this point, anyway [geddit?]). I want Sieran and Tybalt back!

@ OP great ideas! I would love for the personal story to continue and your ideas make both sense and sound very plausible- I would certainly play it

Interesting ideas

I really want Trehearne to do some sort of ritual that turns him into a second pale tree, and he’d plant himself at the source of orr to cleanse it.
It would also be really cool if over time orr changed, all the undead die out, get slain, it becomes emptier as the corruption fades… Then it becomes like another area of the game, new creatures move in… grass starts growing, the water gets cleaner. etc…

That would be so difficult to impliment into the game, but It would make the player feel like they’d achieved something. It kind of sucks to have killed Zhaitan and orrians are still sprouting from everywhere :c

I wouldn’t want to play a commander, or army general type figure again, unless you get to make decisions that actually do something. I’d much rather the freelancer approach, you unite people, and fight things, following trails etc without having a tonne of NPCs following you around.

I kind of hope we get more than one dragon threat at a time, maybe one from the sea, and Jourmag or Kralk. It might be itnerested to whitness a colossal dragon battle too, 2 elder dragons trying to dominate the world and you’re caught up in the middle. How crazy would that be!

Sylvari can’t be corrupted. Figured being so eager to write about the lore, you would study it a little better

Yeah, I was thinking about that too. Some areas could change over time, but if you want Orr to change, you would need the same map twice.

You wouldn’t want to mess up the storyline progression for the people who didn’t do that content. Then you have a gated progression system, since those who didn’t beat Zaithan wouldn’t have that area unlocked.

While in sense of story I wouldn’t mind that as such, if that means some more events, monster types, interesting settlements, green lands, and everything.

But on the other hand, the “old” Orr would become empty like that, making it even harder to find people through that content.

What I hope is that somehow they will make any progression to the story as such that they can change the area after the dragon has in fact been defeated.

The one time Karka event (even though it has it’s problems) was a good way to do this, as the land was unknown, nothing was going on there, and now the event passed, and the land is open for loads of updates.

I believe Orr will be forever tainted by the dragons influence for quite some time.

I’d start brainstorming ideas but there’s two catches:

1 – I’d rather save the effort for my D&D campaign.
2 – ArenaNet cannot use anything we post here.

No Walking.6349:

Sylvari can’t be corrupted. Figured being so eager to write about the lore, you would study it a little better

I know they can’t be corrupted :o That’s why I thought a sylvari tree planted over the source of orr would keep it free from corruption. Or did you mean something else?

And yer, from a gameplay point of view, areas changing over time wouldn’t work very well at all. In some kind of ideal game it would work though, and be really cool :p

I am in favour of this just because I get to kill Trahearne myself.

Idea for The Orders, make quests! I mean order should have sense after endgame, give us quests like the old MMO style, events are 1 thing that happens in a limited area in a limited space of time. Quests for do things arround Tyria would make players at endgame go explore the PVE maps again, and the DEVs can manage alot of things to do in thoose quests.

Also Story Should be extended in this monthly events, there should be a small storyline for we still write our legend even after we defeated zhaitan!

That way I guess it will fill some of the what’s missing at endgame.

No Walking.6349:

Sylvari can’t be corrupted. Figured being so eager to write about the lore, you would study it a little better

That was an oversight. Exam week must have gotten to me.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’d start brainstorming ideas but there’s two catches:

1 – I’d rather save the effort for my D&D campaign.
2 – ArenaNet cannot use anything we post here.

1. D&D has a lot to offer, and having a place to pour your creativity into is a creators mission

2 . Could you be more specific? The IPR math of derivative art is a bit boogled, but does the boogled sign actually read ‘boogled to death’? I would hate to know that being a creative fan force is wasted boogle.

When illuminated by the light of IPR the acronym of ‘OP’ becomes boogle-shimmered.

OP, I like the ideas, even more the intent to write OUR story.

Max Lexandre.6279:

Idea for The Orders, make quests! I mean order should have sense after endgame, give us quests like the old MMO style, events are 1 thing that happens in a limited area in a limited space of time. Quests for do things arround Tyria would make players at endgame go explore the PVE maps again, and the DEVs can manage alot of things to do in thoose quests.

Also Story Should be extended in this monthly events, there should be a small storyline for we still write our legend even after we defeated zhaitan!

That way I guess it will fill some of the what’s missing at endgame.

Tyria faces constant war. Thousands, millions have been displaced by the dragon’s corruption. Are they starving? Do they need clothes and shelter? Where are the orphans, who is tasked with helping them? There are so many ways to be a Tyrian hero, yet all we can do is separate heads from shoulders.

Jianrai.7253:

Likin’ this. A lot.

Mostly because Demi Beetlestone >>>>> Trahearne.

In general though, I really wish our decisions had more of a noticeable effect on the game world. =\

Thousands of different player decisions simultaneously having an effect on the game world… its not possible without the world become heavily instanced in which case it becomes more a single player game.

Psientist.6437:

Max Lexandre.6279:

Idea for The Orders, make quests! I mean order should have sense after endgame, give us quests like the old MMO style, events are 1 thing that happens in a limited area in a limited space of time. Quests for do things arround Tyria would make players at endgame go explore the PVE maps again, and the DEVs can manage alot of things to do in thoose quests.

Also Story Should be extended in this monthly events, there should be a small storyline for we still write our legend even after we defeated zhaitan!

That way I guess it will fill some of the what’s missing at endgame.

Tyria faces constant war. Thousands, millions have been displaced by the dragon’s corruption. Are they starving? Do they need clothes and shelter? Where are the orphans, who is tasked with helping them? There are so many ways to be a Tyrian hero, yet all we can do is separate heads from shoulders.

Some kind of Order Missions at endgame would expand the game alot in that side, we all see how things like The Orders, Home Instance, Home Cities, some general PVE Maps became useles/empty at the endgame. I’m hoping to see thoose areas worked on alot and what I pointed would help I supose. :P

Order missions with the task of tidying up the aftermath would be a lot like the Ministry of Purity missions in gw1, they worked really well though. Kept the story going, and showed the player that while one corruption is gone, another is rising to take its place.

I like these ideas, but, they’re too similar to what we have currently. Most of what you wrote is basically the same story, but, with a few twists, and changes. Allow me to explain.

Trahearne has died

It was a great blow to the Pact when insert next campaign’s dragon here launched an ambush on the Marshall. He was corrupted and inevitably slain by his second in command (the player character). The Pact crumbled under the blow. Each Order blamed each other (and themselves) for his death and separated, leaving Tyria vulnerable.

This is almost identical to the “Destiny’s Edge” story that unfolds later on in the game. Your idea differs only on a few minor details.

The Orders Re-visited

Your job, Commander insert your name, is to re-unite the Pact, starting with your own Order. You will inspire new recruits, sway dissenters, go on dangerous missions, and save the other Orders from certain demise, solidifying yourself as a leader that all Orders view as one of their own. You will become the new Marshall.

Once again, this follows the “Destiny’s Edge” story pretty closely. It’s what we do for THEM, except in larger scale (instead of re-uniting 5 people, your re-uniting 3 large orders). The other difference is just some “role reversal”. Instead of the “player-helps-NPC-become-leader” that we have now, it’s “NPC-helps-player-become-leader”.

But you won’t do it alone

You will need a partner. You will need an equal to replace the one you lost on Claw Island. They will fight for you as you set forth to re-unite Tyria against the dragons, eventually becoming your second-in-command.

This is also just “role reversal”.

Don’t get me wrong, I DO like these ideas, but, A-net really needs to come up with something different. By doing so, it gives us GW2 vets more incentive to, not only buy the new expansion, but, to keep playing in general. Also, you have to think about it from a “new player” perspective. If that “new player” plays through the current story, and then has to do roughly the same story in the new expansion, they will likely get bored with the game fairly quickly.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’d start brainstorming ideas but there’s two catches:

1 – I’d rather save the effort for my D&D campaign.
2 – ArenaNet cannot use anything we post here.

I agree, although I’d replace cannot with won’t.

Although it would be so nice to create your own content in GW2 or any MMO for that matter, like you can in D&D.