Guild Wars 2

Am I the only person who has played GW1 that feels that a lot of the lore of the series is being told in a stale manner? The entire Instance with rytlock in the dragons reach was just so dumb. I mean the items were just found lying around in rocks. Whoever the writer is does everything in such a rushed manner. I also don’t feel like there’s anything to do because I liked hunting for my skills in GW1.

I’ve played every content update Anet has given us and I’m not impressed by them at all. They’re getting better, I’ll admit but they shouldn’t have even been this bad in the first place. So far all the game has offered me was map completion, crap dungeons with 5 players that aren’t even fun, a poorly told story compared to my PC from GW1’s story. I would rather pay for an expansion that’s had time taken to develop it to it’s fullest than this 2 week update crap. Could legit guild wars be a thing in the future? Like Guild vs Guild? Is any of this stuff in development maybe? Am I the only one who feels lost to where this game is going?

I find it funny that the ESRB rating is T for teen when it should be E for everyone. The writing is so childish, that I’ve seen saturday morning cartoons with a better plot line.

iv loved the game
the original zaihtan story was a bit.. eh
but the living story isnt tooo bad. i mean i have played ALOT worse
but i do agree.
i think the reason i feel like this is for a couple of reasons.
i think its more to do with the pacing tbh
guild wars one we had clear objectives from the start and each mission more or less lead into the other
guild wars 2 seems to start going in one direction(mainly latest patch) and then go off in several tangents with each one only getting a tiny bit of love

for instance i imagine the current story in guild wars 1 would focus on 1 faction at a time for a longer period of time
with bam and air “oh please help us mum but i hate u”
“oh no he( nor leader) wont help unless u kill these guys”
why?
i unno i wasnt told or told in a way that would make me care or take notice
it just feels like we are fighting faceless and nameless enemies repeatedly.
I understand not everything can have meaning but when everything seems to have so little meaning.

i understand the want to get rid of the quest system
but when they did that you destroyed a huge lore recourse
when i started playing i thought kitten they have had ages this must be overflowing with lore
when i start to play not even POINT OF INTEREST get a little blurb i mean really?
this was probably one of the bigger opportunitys to include some lore

sorry got a bit carried away
i love the game and i love the lore i just wish there was more of it and it just frustraits me so much

JBDanger.2603:

I find it funny that the ESRB rating is T for teen when it should be E for everyone. The writing is so childish, that I’ve seen saturday morning cartoons with a better plot line.

Whoever this writer is just destroyed the Guild Wars I loved and played for hours upon hours. They have a dumb obsession with plants too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBAxPYq0WYw this video is a pure example of how awesome GW1 was compared to this. It just lost it’s serious tone and was replaced by this childish plants and zombies. It infuriates me Anet still lets whatever team or person continue to write this story. It’s cancer.

saventis.1485:

iv loved the game
the original zaihtan story was a bit.. eh
but the living story isnt tooo bad. i mean i have played ALOT worse
but i do agree.
i think the reason i feel like this is for a couple of reasons.
i think its more to do with the pacing tbh
guild wars one we had clear objectives from the start and each mission more or less lead into the other
guild wars 2 seems to start going in one direction(mainly latest patch) and then go off in several tangents with each one only getting a tiny bit of love

for instance i imagine the current story in guild wars 1 would focus on 1 faction at a time for a longer period of time
with bam and air “oh please help us mum but i hate u”
“oh no he( nor leader) wont help unless u kill these guys”
why?
i unno i wasnt told or told in a way that would make me care or take notice
it just feels like we are fighting faceless and nameless enemies repeatedly.
I understand not everything can have meaning but when everything seems to have so little meaning.

i understand the want to get rid of the quest system
but when they did that you destroyed a huge lore recourse
when i started playing i thought kitten they have had ages this must be overflowing with lore
when i start to play not even POINT OF INTEREST get a little blurb i mean really?
this was probably one of the bigger opportunitys to include some lore

sorry got a bit carried away
i love the game and i love the lore i just wish there was more of it and it just frustraits me so much

Exactly, things are just happening without clear explanation of why. I one thing I was impressed with was the dark atmosphere of them using mordremoths vines to kill Tyrians and display their lifeless bodies. It’s a start to a serious atmosphre but everything else is still too childish. The Charr were so much more vicious in GW1 and in two I’ve seen more vicious Charr in WvW than in the actual story. Scarlets death was literally the most failed character death ever. We dealt with her for so long and she didn’t even get an epic death. She woke a dragon up with a drill, big whoop.

I think most of the people using the world childish are probably young. There are a lot of older people in my guild who don’t think the story is childish at all. What most people are saying when they say childish is that it’s not dark. Some people associate dark with adult, but I don’t necessarily think that’s the case.

Even a simple storyline isn’t necessarily a childish one. Romeo and Juliet had a fairly simple storyline, but it’s not childish.

Yes Scarlet came basically out of nowhere, but the elder dragons didn’t. If she was a tool of the elder dragon, then all of a sudden her existence takes on different connotations. People simply don’t have the wait and see mentality in games.

A lot of what happens in the living story is well done from my point of view. The way the vines appeared up front and over days started poking at waypoints and then eventually destroyed some of them.

Even the part of the living story where we had two guards walking around LA and we see one being extremely prejudice against Sylvari in general because of what Scarlet did to LA isn’t childish.

I have no idea why people would use the word childish to describe the current living story.

JBDanger.2603:

I find it funny that the ESRB rating is T for teen when it should be E for everyone. The writing is so childish, that I’ve seen saturday morning cartoons with a better plot line.

Ugh! This! So much this. I was literally talking to my guildies today about how childish the game feels in comparison to GW1. We don’t even have a real fleshed out enemy in this game. I mean we have the elder dragon, but they literally get no character development themselves at all. They woke up, destroyed everything, and now what? What do they want? Idk maybe that’s clear in the lore somewhere, but the storyline doesn’t make it clear other than that they like to destroy things and we need to kill them.

At least GW1 had good villains—Varesh, who turned to Abaddon to try and benefit her nation. Shiro- who wanted revenge from Cantha. The Lich- he wanted to complete the flameseeker prophecies and unleash the titans. All these villains have strong back stories as well- the elder dragons literally just woke up and were like “gonna go wreck tyria now kbye”

I know I’m ranting here but one last thing. The way the storyline is laid out is so completely linear. From the moment you make your character you basically know you’re gonna kill zhaitan. In prophecies, you:

1. Try to save ascalon
2. Realize this is futile and get refugees to LA
3. Help the white mantle against the undead
4. Help the white mantle against the shining blaed
5. PLOT TWIST white mantle are evil
6. Help the shining blade
7. * My memory gets fuzzy after this point* There’s a traitor and you have to become ascended bc you’re the chosen.
8. Free evennia and kill markis
9. Help the dwarves defeat the stone summit to gain them as allies
10. KIll your ally vizier khilbron who PLOT TWIST was the Lich

see how engaging that storyline is compared to one where you’re just on a quest to kill a dragon? I REALLY want to like this game more. That’s why I’ve stuck around this long. But please anet make your characters more engaging. Also I hate logan (but that’s just personal :P)

They change.3526:

saventis.1485:

iv loved the game
the original zaihtan story was a bit.. eh
but the living story isnt tooo bad. i mean i have played ALOT worse
but i do agree.
i think the reason i feel like this is for a couple of reasons.

also yes the start of this season was great with the corpses
i think its more to do with the pacing tbh
guild wars one we had clear objectives from the start and each mission more or less lead into the other
guild wars 2 seems to start going in one direction(mainly latest patch) and then go off in several tangents with each one only getting a tiny bit of love

for instance i imagine the current story in guild wars 1 would focus on 1 faction at a time for a longer period of time
with bam and air “oh please help us mum but i hate u”
“oh no he( nor leader) wont help unless u kill these guys”
why?
i unno i wasnt told or told in a way that would make me care or take notice
it just feels like we are fighting faceless and nameless enemies repeatedly.
I understand not everything can have meaning but when everything seems to have so little meaning.

i understand the want to get rid of the quest system
but when they did that you destroyed a huge lore recourse
when i started playing i thought kitten they have had ages this must be overflowing with lore
when i start to play not even POINT OF INTEREST get a little blurb i mean really?
this was probably one of the bigger opportunitys to include some lore

sorry got a bit carried away
i love the game and i love the lore i just wish there was more of it and it just frustraits me so much

Exactly, things are just happening without clear explanation of why. I one thing I was impressed with was the dark atmosphere of them using mordremoths vines to kill Tyrians and display their lifeless bodies. It’s a start to a serious atmosphre but everything else is still too childish. The Charr were so much more vicious in GW1 and in two I’ve seen more vicious Charr in WvW than in the actual story. Scarlets death was literally the most failed character death ever. We dealt with her for so long and she didn’t even get an epic death. She woke a dragon up with a drill, big whoop.

actually scarlet is a really interesting character (imo)if u start to dive deep and try to figure out her motivations, she becomes really intersting
perhaps she was corrupted by mord but then even if she was.
whos to say he had full control?
i mean she fought the corruption till her dying breath which kind of drove her insane
but she could potentially have been far more good than we ever knew (now stay with me this is FULL speculation haha)
what if she knew about mord(well she did she got corrupted after the omad incident) and knew he was coming.
now we dont know much about mord corruption perhaps it turns people into his slave maybe insane i dont know but from then on he was in her head
maybe she knew there was no one she could really turn to because by entering the machine she rejected the pale mother(hence no mental shield)
what could she do?
so she untied tyria against her
develoing the toughest and strongest things she could to terrorize(prepare) the people
at the same time working on a way to destroy mord

ill stop there cause i could go on and on and on but yea there is potential for scarlet to be an amazing character still
(oh and just so u know my theory is that the eldar dragons cannot be killed because they are magic itself)

Guild Wars was by far a better story and made you feel more connected with the way it was setup, everyone knows that!

GW2’s combat is better, its skill system is incredibly lack luster and poor compared to GW as well as its story.

The whole point of the LS is to make us feel connected to the story, but you feel more disconnected than ever. Theres no character building outside of the 5 heroes representing each Race… and thats terrible!

Like you said, the writing is poor. I will always remember GuildWars till the day I die. Cant say the same for GW2

also if u want to potentially start looking at overarching lore id look into norse mythology
i mean that what this game almost is
Yggdrasil =the pale tree
Jormungand= means great beast is also called the midgaurd serpent known to be a serpent or dragon hes said to have been thrown into the great ocean that encircles midgaurd (i think this great encircling ocian may be ley lines and why the keep referring to them as streams and rivers)
Hes meant to have grown so big he encircled the earth and have grasped his own tale ( i liken this to the elder dragons except the encircle the word in a different way?

Vayne.8563:

I think most of the people using the world childish are probably young. There are a lot of older people in my guild who don’t think the story is childish at all. What most people are saying when they say childish is that it’s not dark. Some people associate dark with adult, but I don’t necessarily think that’s the case.

Even a simple storyline isn’t necessarily a childish one. Romeo and Juliet had a fairly simple storyline, but it’s not childish.

Yes Scarlet came basically out of nowhere, but the elder dragons didn’t. If she was a tool of the elder dragon, then all of a sudden her existence takes on different connotations. People simply don’t have the wait and see mentality in games.

A lot of what happens in the living story is well done from my point of view. The way the vines appeared up front and over days started poking at waypoints and then eventually destroyed some of them.

Even the part of the living story where we had two guards walking around LA and we see one being extremely prejudice against Sylvari in general because of what Scarlet did to LA isn’t childish.

I have no idea why people would use the word childish to describe the current living story.

Thanks guy for assuming I’m young, you and I are both junk holes now. Aside from your kittenumption of my age, the point I was trying to get across is this story is presented terribly have you played GW1 by chance vayne?

They change.3526:

Vayne.8563:

I think most of the people using the world childish are probably young. There are a lot of older people in my guild who don’t think the story is childish at all. What most people are saying when they say childish is that it’s not dark. Some people associate dark with adult, but I don’t necessarily think that’s the case.

Even a simple storyline isn’t necessarily a childish one. Romeo and Juliet had a fairly simple storyline, but it’s not childish.

Yes Scarlet came basically out of nowhere, but the elder dragons didn’t. If she was a tool of the elder dragon, then all of a sudden her existence takes on different connotations. People simply don’t have the wait and see mentality in games.

A lot of what happens in the living story is well done from my point of view. The way the vines appeared up front and over days started poking at waypoints and then eventually destroyed some of them.

Even the part of the living story where we had two guards walking around LA and we see one being extremely prejudice against Sylvari in general because of what Scarlet did to LA isn’t childish.

I have no idea why people would use the word childish to describe the current living story.

Thanks guy for assuming I’m young, you and I are both junk holes now. Aside from your kittenumption of my age, the point I was trying to get across is this story is presented terribly have you played GW1 by chance vayne?

I’m relatively sure I logged more hours into Guild Wars 1 than most people. I played it for five years. The story is Guild Wars 1 was told well, but in many cases it wasn’t a great story.

Examples given like the White Mantle being evil. I don’t know about you but that didn’t surprise me one whit.

The Lich wasn’t a complex boss in any way shape or form. He wanted to (evil laugh) take over the world. Why did all the bad guys like the white mantle have foreign accents btw. Drove me mad.

There stories were okay but there was plenty of wrong with the story telling in Guild Wars 1 as well.

Scarlet has complexity but it wasn’t revealed up front. If you don’t agree that’s fine. But there’s nothing childish about someone having their mind invaded by an elder dragon and going insane and trying to fight it and find their attacker.

If you call that childish, I’m afraid I’d have to disagree.

There were many flaws in the Guild Wars 1 story. Stupid stuff that

Some of us that enjoy the Living Story did play Guild Wars. For 7000+ hours. Just because we can enjoy a different story doesn’t mean we aren’t familiar with the lore. It isn’t like Guild Wars didn’t have its weak characters that many made fun of or groaned whenever their name was mentioned.

It’s a different type of story delivery and maybe after its growing pains more people will find it satisfactory. Or maybe not.

Regardless, I’m certainly interested to find out what happens next. =)

I just have to say something.

I never played Guild Wars 1, but a friend told me about Guild Wars 2 and I started playing in the beta. Within the first 20 minutes I knew this game was going to be special. And it is.

Having fallen in love with the world and the stories and the combat and the game modes, I’d considered picking up Guild Wars 1 to delve a bit deeper into the backstory, but if anything has convinced me to not play GW1, it’s the GW1 players that post on this forum. All this stuff about soul-crushingly hard content, 800 skills and builds and heroes and henchmen has been an absolute turn off to me. Not to mention the attitude and demeanor of this small minority of GW1 players with their continual bashing of this game and their sour, bitter and hateful treatment of anyone or anything to do with GW2 which is hands down the best MMO I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing.

I honestly wonder if you folks have ever played an MMO before because if you’ve seen the garbage that’s out there you would know that this gorgeous, fascinating and immensely interesting world the devs have created for us is one of a kind jewel in an ocean of mediocrity and to be treasured.

Seriously, if you like GW1 better, why don’t you play GW1 instead of posting here?

see the thing is for me at least is not that i hate guild wars 2 or love guild wars 1 its more that we have seen the potential for the story.
We love the game and all want it to do well, and its frustrating to see it fall short. This game has an amazing universe just begging to be explored but it feels like its being drip fed to us and at that quite sporadically.
Clearly some people are better at voicing their concerns and suggestions than others.
However the fact that they are on the forums means they care

Karizee.8076:

I just have to say something.

I never played Guild Wars 1, but a friend told me about Guild Wars 2 and I started playing in the beta. Within the first 20 minutes I knew this game was going to be special. And it is.

Having fallen in love with the world and the stories and the combat and the game modes, I’d considered picking up Guild Wars 1 to delve a bit deeper into the backstory, but if anything has convinced me to not play GW1, it’s the GW1 players that post on this forum. All this stuff about soul-crushingly hard content, 800 skills and builds and heroes and henchmen has been an absolute turn off to me. Not to mention the attitude and demeanor of this small minority of GW1 players with their continual bashing of this game and their sour, bitter and hateful treatment of anyone or anything to do with GW2 which is hands down the best MMO I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing.

I honestly wonder if you folks have ever played an MMO before because if you’ve seen the garbage that’s out there you would know that this gorgeous, fascinating and immensely interesting world the devs have created for us is one of a kind jewel in an ocean of mediocrity and to be treasured.

Seriously, if you like GW1 better, why don’t you play GW1 instead of posting here?

Sorry, but this post is pretty irrelevant to this conversation. This basically has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. You’re complaining about GW1 players and how they’re qq about skills and builds and whatnot. While I do have a few qualms about that, this entire thread has been about storyline. It is a critique of lore and storyline development in the game in the hopes that devs will read it and look at their past work when trying to IMPROVE the current game.

And another thing, have you ever stopped to consider that GW1 players complain because they want to see this game succeed and improve? Some of us have been with ANET for the past 8 years. Is it wrong for a loyal customer to ask more of their company and voice their concerns? Is it wrong to ask for better content? Because, like I said, we have been with Anet for the better part of a decade and we know the kind of amazing stuff this company is capable of producing. Unlike you may think, we are not an army of rabid hatemongering cynics. And trust me, I’ve tried plenty of MMOs: TERA, Rift, Aion, DCUO, WoW, SWTOR, Dragon Nest, hell, even Runescape. That’s just off the top of my head and most of these I wasn’t able to play for more than a month. There is undeniably something about this game that keeps me coming back. But sorry, I cannot continue to go on just singing Anet’s praises when I see areas of the game that need definite improvement.

Oh and btw, I still play plenty of GW. But sadly, that game has died off and is not the once giant, amazing MMO it used to be.

Vogue.6305:

Oh and btw, I still play plenty of GW. But sadly, that game has died off and is not the once giant, amazing MMO it used to be.

For the record, Guild Wars 1 was never an MMO and calling it such is misleading. Even Anet has said it’s not an MMO.

And some of the differences between this game and that game are the differences between an MMO and a game like Guild Wars 1, which was a CoRPG.

Over all, it’s quite a bit easier to tell stories when the entire game is instanced.

Vayne.8563:

Vogue.6305:

Oh and btw, I still play plenty of GW. But sadly, that game has died off and is not the once giant, amazing MMO it used to be.

For the record, Guild Wars 1 was never an MMO and calling it such is misleading. Even Anet has said it’s not an MMO.

And some of the differences between this game and that game are the differences between an MMO and a game like Guild Wars 1, which was a CoRPG.

Over all, it’s quite a bit easier to tell stories when the entire game is instanced.

but the thing is the entire personal story IS instanced

Vayne.8563:

Vogue.6305:

Oh and btw, I still play plenty of GW. But sadly, that game has died off and is not the once giant, amazing MMO it used to be.

For the record, Guild Wars 1 was never an MMO and calling it such is misleading. Even Anet has said it’s not an MMO.

And some of the differences between this game and that game are the differences between an MMO and a game like Guild Wars 1, which was a CoRPG.

Over all, it’s quite a bit easier to tell stories when the entire game is instanced.

yes, because personal story and living story missions aren’t instanced in gw2?

Well, as we saw in Episode 3, not all parts of them for Season Two. And lots of Season One was Open World. Something for everyone! =)

I loved GW1, and I love GW2 even more. However!

I felt the doom in GW1, I felt like there was a no-win scenario on some missions. I felt fear for my little group of Hero’s and my NPC – there was a serious tone that couldn’t be replaced by the amazing writers of the various expansions.

The most obvious difference is the serious-doom-like feeling between GW1 and GW2 and that is why I dislike GW2 stories. It can’t measure – it’s too silly, too “T” for teen.

Do not get me wrong, I still enjoy GW2 in every way.

hmm good point
i mean i know others have been saying it but that wording
was exactly what i needed to get it heh

since the begining the people that die a throw away characters except for your order choice in PS
tybalt was the only character i ended up caring about on my play through

i mean they are doing alot better now there is a group of characters i care about but only three the 2 humans and taimi
humans cause well humans and mesmers
and taimi because shes awesome
good voice actor, decent (albiet small) backstory and shes just so cute+ i play an asuran

now killing any of the troop of just yet would be a bad idea in my opinion because there is no real goal atm

its “lets get the adults cause i unno what else to do” (maybe putting it a little to simple)
and if u killed one now it wouldnt really drive the plot anywhere infact itd send it on ANOTHER tangent about how sad we are that a friend died
and egad thatd be boring

saventis.1485:

Vayne.8563:

Vogue.6305:

Oh and btw, I still play plenty of GW. But sadly, that game has died off and is not the once giant, amazing MMO it used to be.

For the record, Guild Wars 1 was never an MMO and calling it such is misleading. Even Anet has said it’s not an MMO.

And some of the differences between this game and that game are the differences between an MMO and a game like Guild Wars 1, which was a CoRPG.

Over all, it’s quite a bit easier to tell stories when the entire game is instanced.

but the thing is the entire personal story IS instanced

Yes you’re right, the entire personal story is instanced. But the point is nothing else is.

When you played Guild Wars 1, the story played out in instanced missions AND instanced world zones. So you’d be fighting the charr and the world would support and back up what you were doing in missions. It felt more cohesive, because the design allowed it to be cohesive. What made that possible was that GW 1 was linear. Linear is how stories are told.

Compare that to Guild Wars 2. You have three different stories in the human 1-10 levels and the zone is mostly about centaurs and bandies. One story does centaurs, one does bandits, but you could be leveling in Caledon Forest and you’d get undead instead.

Because the world in Guild Wars 1 backed up the missions, it felt like a totally cohesive story. It was one.

Here you bounce around a lot more. You aren’t restrained in the same way. That has advantages and disadvantages. On one hand you get more freedom. But it’s much much harder to tell a story this way.

Even in Orr with everything is about the battle with Zhaitan, people do a few story chapters, then another one than may another one. That last battle with Zhaitan was never meant to be a boss battle. You’d already starved him, blinded him, taken away it’s ability to make undead and then hit it with an anti dragon magic weapon. It was on its last legs by the time you faced it.

But because most people don’t play the level 70 story straight through the Arah dungeon the cohesion is lost and people feel separated from the story.

Between those events they’ve done the meta event chain, some WvW, a few dungeons, run some guild missions. It really does break up the story.

Vogue.6305:

Vayne.8563:

Vogue.6305:

Oh and btw, I still play plenty of GW. But sadly, that game has died off and is not the once giant, amazing MMO it used to be.

For the record, Guild Wars 1 was never an MMO and calling it such is misleading. Even Anet has said it’s not an MMO.

And some of the differences between this game and that game are the differences between an MMO and a game like Guild Wars 1, which was a CoRPG.

Over all, it’s quite a bit easier to tell stories when the entire game is instanced.

yes, because personal story and living story missions aren’t instanced in gw2?

Red herring is a red herring. That the world was going along with your story made the story feel more cohesive. The quests you were doing in Guild Wars 1 backed up the entire mission process. You were fighting charr in the world while the missions were about charr. You had no reason in Guild Wars 1 to go back to early zones in the same story. It was linear. More detail in my other answer since I don’t want to type that twice. lol

Karizee.8076:

I just have to say something.

I never played Guild Wars 1, but a friend told me about Guild Wars 2 and I started playing in the beta. Within the first 20 minutes I knew this game was going to be special. And it is.

Having fallen in love with the world and the stories and the combat and the game modes, I’d considered picking up Guild Wars 1 to delve a bit deeper into the backstory, but if anything has convinced me to not play GW1, it’s the GW1 players that post on this forum. All this stuff about soul-crushingly hard content, 800 skills and builds and heroes and henchmen has been an absolute turn off to me. Not to mention the attitude and demeanor of this small minority of GW1 players with their continual bashing of this game and their sour, bitter and hateful treatment of anyone or anything to do with GW2 which is hands down the best MMO I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing.

I honestly wonder if you folks have ever played an MMO before because if you’ve seen the garbage that’s out there you would know that this gorgeous, fascinating and immensely interesting world the devs have created for us is one of a kind jewel in an ocean of mediocrity and to be treasured.

Seriously, if you like GW1 better, why don’t you play GW1 instead of posting here?

I agree with you. I tried GW1a year or so before the release of GW2. I just could not get into that game. Not a huge problem I just played other games. This sub population that you have seen as well removes any desire to give it a longer and more in depth try.

Vayne.8563:

saventis.1485:

Vayne.8563:

Vogue.6305:

Oh and btw, I still play plenty of GW. But sadly, that game has died off and is not the once giant, amazing MMO it used to be.

For the record, Guild Wars 1 was never an MMO and calling it such is misleading. Even Anet has said it’s not an MMO.

And some of the differences between this game and that game are the differences between an MMO and a game like Guild Wars 1, which was a CoRPG.

Over all, it’s quite a bit easier to tell stories when the entire game is instanced.

but the thing is the entire personal story IS instanced

Yes you’re right, the entire personal story is instanced. But the point is nothing else is.

When you played Guild Wars 1, the story played out in instanced missions AND instanced world zones. So you’d be fighting the charr and the world would support and back up what you were doing in missions. It felt more cohesive, because the design allowed it to be cohesive. What made that possible was that GW 1 was linear. Linear is how stories are told.

Compare that to Guild Wars 2. You have three different stories in the human 1-10 levels and the zone is mostly about centaurs and bandies. One story does centaurs, one does bandits, but you could be leveling in Caledon Forest and you’d get undead instead.

Because the world in Guild Wars 1 backed up the missions, it felt like a totally cohesive story. It was one.

Here you bounce around a lot more. You aren’t restrained in the same way. That has advantages and disadvantages. On one hand you get more freedom. But it’s much much harder to tell a story this way.

Even in Orr with everything is about the battle with Zhaitan, people do a few story chapters, then another one than may another one. That last battle with Zhaitan was never meant to be a boss battle. You’d already starved him, blinded him, taken away it’s ability to make undead and then hit it with an anti dragon magic weapon. It was on its last legs by the time you faced it.

But because most people don’t play the level 70 story straight through the Arah dungeon the cohesion is lost and people feel separated from the story.

Between those events they’ve done the meta event chain, some WvW, a few dungeons, run some guild missions. It really does break up the story.

what they did tho was replace instancing the zones with the down leveling u get in the early zones

so i dont see why it should really change much
and yea u say the quests had to do with the missions
alot of them did and thats a good thing it expands the lore more it furthers those questions the mission didnt expand on
they tried to do this with dynamic events in my mind what they made was a quest with no lore
which is… depressing to say the least
dont get me wrong there is lore but its really not touching on the stuff we need it to in these dynamic events
these dynamic event dont further our understanding of the story (which in a game designed to have no end game and basically use the living world as end game aka dynamic events is bad in my opinion)there is amount of lore that could be there but is not
the idea was they would replace traditional questing but we get less because of it

saventis.1485:

Vayne.8563:

saventis.1485:

Vayne.8563:

Vogue.6305:

snip

snip

but the thing is the entire personal story IS instanced

Yes you’re right, the entire personal story is instanced. But the point is nothing else is.

When you played Guild Wars 1, the story played out in instanced missions AND instanced world zones. So you’d be fighting the charr and the world would support and back up what you were doing in missions. It felt more cohesive, because the design allowed it to be cohesive. What made that possible was that GW 1 was linear. Linear is how stories are told.

Compare that to Guild Wars 2. You have three different stories in the human 1-10 levels and the zone is mostly about centaurs and bandies. One story does centaurs, one does bandits, but you could be leveling in Caledon Forest and you’d get undead instead.

Because the world in Guild Wars 1 backed up the missions, it felt like a totally cohesive story. It was one.

Here you bounce around a lot more. You aren’t restrained in the same way. That has advantages and disadvantages. On one hand you get more freedom. But it’s much much harder to tell a story this way.

Even in Orr with everything is about the battle with Zhaitan, people do a few story chapters, then another one than may another one. That last battle with Zhaitan was never meant to be a boss battle. You’d already starved him, blinded him, taken away it’s ability to make undead and then hit it with an anti dragon magic weapon. It was on its last legs by the time you faced it.

But because most people don’t play the level 70 story straight through the Arah dungeon the cohesion is lost and people feel separated from the story.

Between those events they’ve done the meta event chain, some WvW, a few dungeons, run some guild missions. It really does break up the story.

what they did tho was replace instancing the zones with the down leveling u get in the early zones

so i dont see why it should really change much
and yea u say the quests had to do with the missions
alot of them did and thats a good thing it expands the lore more it furthers those questions the mission didnt expand on
they tried to do this with dynamic events in my mind what they made was a quest with no lore
which is… depressing to say the least
dont get me wrong there is lore but its really not touching on the stuff we need it to in these dynamic events
these dynamic event dont further our understanding of the story (which in a game designed to have no end game and basically use the living world as end game aka dynamic events is bad in my opinion)there is amount of lore that could be there but is not
the idea was they would replace traditional questing but we get less because of it

Not change much? It changes everything. Literally everything. Guild Wars 1 controls everywhere you go very specifically. When you start Prophecies the first time, you start in Pre and unless you stay in Pre (and then the whole story point is moot), you end up in post searing Ascalon. And the whole story quest is linked directly to the world at that point. It’s one single story and everyone is doing it.

Do you know one reason like Season 2 more than the personal story is partly because the zone itself links to the story. It’s more like Guild Wars 1. The story of that zone is the story of the living world. The personal story can’t do that because of options.

Once you put options into the story the world can no longer back up every story. You’ll have stories that feel disjointed. The story telling in Guild Wars 1 isn’t just missions. You have breadcrumb quests that lead to the next mission.

Do you remember in Factions how you had to get 10,000 points to continue the story? That’s pretty much what happens in Guild Wars 2 on a smaller scale. Anet slowed the game down and took you out of the story to grind these points, so you could continue the story. But even then the zones represented what you were doing with those cultures.

But a Sylvari who levels in Edge of the Mists or Queendale loses that continuity completely. With the freedom of being nonlinear comes the difficulties in telling a cohesive story.

I’m not sure why you can’t see this, because it’s a very obvious truth. It’s why most MMOs don’t have great stories and many single player games do. You can do a lot more with an instance in telling or in the case of Guild Wars 1 supporting the story.

Ugh, my response was so long I have to break it down into two posts. So i apologize about the double post.

Vayne,

I really don’t see the point you’re trying to make here. I mean, I kind of do, but I just don’t understand where it’s heading. You’re arguing that the instancing of GW made it a better storyteller—even if this is true, it really doesn’t make up for the fact that GW2’s storytelling has been so incredibly lackluster. Like we said earlier missions are instanced. You mentioned the primary quests of GW as breadcrumbs that link the missions. Great. That’s exactly on point. But, why exactly does that detract from this game. If you noticed, most of the primary quests of GW were literally “go talk to this NPC” or “find your way to this outpost”. Don’t believe me? Here’s a link to Guildwiki for Proph storyline quests—http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_Prophecies_missions_and_primary_quests . I don’t see how “go talk to this NPC” or “find an outpost (an area in a specific map for gw2’s case)” can’t be implemented here. Another thing, I’m not arguing that those elements aren’t in the game already. There are some personal story quests where I literally go to an area (Logan’s office for example) where I’m briefed on a situation and that’s literally that one quest—This corresponds to “go to … area and talk to … NPC”. What I am trying to say here is that these are done in such a dry manner. Also, a lot of the story seems so stand alone. Like I do something in the storyline and it literally has no effect later in the game. Like I infiltrated a circus and helped stop a mass hypnotism- but aside from a quick reference to Uzolan, this really has no bearing on what happens in the rest of the story. I use a lot of examples from prophecies because I believe it has the best story of GW—but anyways, when you’re crossing the shiverpeaks with the refugees, you work with the dwarves to find refuge. Later on in the story, you work with those same dwarves to free the shining blade and eventually fight alongside them in the Ring of Fire. There are plenty of examples in that storyline where something I did in the past has some, maybe not direct, influence on the future outcome of my hero’s journey. Also, just because you have options, doesn’t mean that it has to detract from the storyline. When I got to Lion’s Arch in GW, I was definitely not level 20, but if I wanted to, I could go off with that same character to Elona or Cantha and work on those campaigns. Or I could even go back to ascalon and finish all the quests in my journal from that area. Just because I wasn’t completing the story at that moment, didn’t cause the storyline to be any less good.

Anyways, this entire conversation has moved past the point of the OP’s original sentiment. The entire point about instancing and whatnot is moot because all it does is provide an excuse for the poor storytelling and doesn’t either work to create a solution or better understand the issue at hand.

Back to the OP’s original comment on the stale presentation of lore. I think there is so much that could be done to help present the lore in a more meaningful manner. For example, points of interest—so many of these are just strewn around the map without any real backstory behind them. I guess the backstory on some of the PoIs is supposed to be assumed from the events going on in the map, but I feel like it would be much more worthwhile and interesting to find a PoI if the devs provided some sort of short written caption about it. Remember how all the towns and outposts in GW had a caption that related back to the lore in GW? That was one of the reasons I loved mapping in that game because I could discover new outposts and read the lore about their history that the devs had provided. I feel like this would add another level of reward to mapping, especially to some of us lore nerds because we get a deeper insight into the history of tyria from all the work we put into getting to the PoI.

I think Domino really hit the nail on the head with his post about the game being to “T” for teen (I’d say much more PG). The current missions aren’t very immersive and feel very superficial. There is no real fear of failure like there was in GW because you are just not involved in the story. Usually I just tag along with an NPC companion and it feels like we run around killing what someone else tells us to kill until we get to the end point. The lack of variety in the missions also contributes to this. Remember all those different missions of GW where the mission really wasn’t get from point A to point B? Like dzagonur bastion, Eternal Grove (THAT was a mission!), Assault on the stronghold from EoTN to name a few. There was one mission in GW2 that I feel actually did well with this and added some variety to the mix was Retribution where you worked with Agent Zott to retake Claw Island. Anyways, sorry for the super long post. I wanted to include this quote from GW1 on Ring of Fire that I felt really helped capture how the storyline really made us feel involved in the plot:

“"Remember, whatever lies inside the Door of Komalie scares the Mursaat. But all of this, these walls and bunkers, they weren’t built to keep something from getting out of the volcano. They were built to keep someone from getting in. No matter how frightened they are of the creatures behind the Door, they are more frightened of you. That, my friend, makes you about the most dangerous thing in Tyria."

Vogue.6305:

Back to the OP’s original comment on the stale presentation of lore. I think there is so much that could be done to help present the lore in a more meaningful manner. For example, points of interest—so many of these are just strewn around the map without any real backstory behind them. I guess the backstory on some of the PoIs is supposed to be assumed from the events going on in the map, but I feel like it would be much more worthwhile and interesting to find a PoI if the devs provided some sort of short written caption about it. Remember how all the towns and outposts in GW had a caption that related back to the lore in GW? That was one of the reasons I loved mapping in that game because I could discover new outposts and read the lore about their history that the devs had provided. I feel like this would add another level of reward to mapping, especially to some of us lore nerds because we get a deeper insight into the history of tyria from all the work we put into getting to the PoI.

This is something I really like to see, I also really liked the descriptions for outposts in the original GuildWars.

See I don’t think the story-telling is poor, and I’m not using Guild Wars 1 as an excuse to excuse poor story telling. I think the story telling is uneven in the first season, better in the second, but without the world being instanced Guild Wars 1 wouldn’t have felt cohesive and that IS what this thread is about. Guild Wars 1 players, how do you feel?

It’s not asking WOW players how they feel. Or Lotro players. It’s talking to Guild Wars 1 players. So it’s perfectly logical to point out why that question is loaded from the get go.

the point of interest thing would have been so easy to do and would make me want to do world completion.

what makes it even worse is that they had these books in game
ready to be scattered throughout tyria and they just didnt (its part the fact they didnt and part the fact that they really never really explain anything in guild wars 2)lik i have no idea why the books wernt implemented they were there ready to go as far as i heard
actually same with polymok

how does such a rich vibrant world have so little history.
I find myself running around wondering about things and then im like well ill probly never know so it dosnt matter

Absolutely love the game
wish i could talk to some devs and actually get answers for once

i know they dont wanna let us down by not implamenting things they talk about (books, polymock ect) but id rather know that you were trying and it failed and why than yea were working on it then nothing ever again.

sorry got carried away

I have no problem with the background story itself because it leaves space to speculation, but I don’t like how most of the characters interact with each other.

The suddend shift in the story to please the “Why I’m not the Hero” crowd resulted (imo) in some questionable dialogues and scenes.
For example after killing Scarlet, you and your comrades spend some time at the inn laughing while people of LA are still dying and the place is totally destoyed.
Or even when Kasmeer comfort Jory for her loss, then few instance later her mood is totally changed and she’s laughing as if nothing happened.
I’m for funny moments, but they need to place them in the right moments.

And in the end, with the dump of the personality system and due of how the story is evolving I feel less and less identified with my characters, they say things I would never say, but nevertheless I have to click to proceed.

I believe they sure can improve and personally I’m not in hurry, my major concerns relate to other areas of the game (mainly bug fixes and VP).

I’m going to feel really old saying this but… they don’t make them like they used too. I’m not just referring to GW1 or even just MMOs but gaming as a whole. Somewhere around the year 2009 gaming took a massive change from making a good game of substance, strategy, story, replayability. But now this has shifted to flashy, empty, set pieces. This is really how I feel about GW2. Sure its pretty. Sure its “action packed”. Sure its expansive. But ultimately its a hollow experience.

Guild Wars 1 story wasn’t all that great either, however it was/is better to what we have in GW2.
Most MMOs have poor story writing.

They change.3526:

Am I the only person who has played GW1 that feels that a lot of the lore of the series is being told in a stale manner? The entire Instance with rytlock in the dragons reach was just so dumb. I mean the items were just found lying around in rocks. Whoever the writer is does everything in such a rushed manner. I also don’t feel like there’s anything to do because I liked hunting for my skills in GW1.

I’ve played every content update Anet has given us and I’m not impressed by them at all. They’re getting better, I’ll admit but they shouldn’t have even been this bad in the first place. So far all the game has offered me was map completion, crap dungeons with 5 players that aren’t even fun, a poorly told story compared to my PC from GW1’s story. I would rather pay for an expansion that’s had time taken to develop it to it’s fullest than this 2 week update crap. Could legit guild wars be a thing in the future? Like Guild vs Guild? Is any of this stuff in development maybe? Am I the only one who feels lost to where this game is going?

I think its safe to say that any form of player vs player is simply neglected here so actual GvG, I’d say its unlikely.

As for the story? Dreadful. A truly powerful artifact is scattered into 4 pieces,you get handed 1 and that lets you magically see the other 3.. and those happen to be conveniently located within piles of rocks on location X,Y and Z.. They could’ve easily split up the fragments to be placed with better diversity.. mayhap put 1 in a explorable dungeon?

Well, both have awkvard moments in story telling, tho it seemed less in GW1.

Tho, I’m more annoyed that I can’t play the whole game without grinding for ascended gear, that being fractals. Who knows they might add more stuff that is limited by not having ascended gear, perhaps Mursaat encounter again…

Since GW2 gear progression was supposed to be like in GW1, where elite gear isn’t necessary or more powerful than max lvl standard gear, it was only PRESTIGE…

If i want a good story i read a book.

At the moment again Midkemia Saga from Raymond Feist

The story in GW1 wasn’t much better, but yeah this has to get more attention next time around.
I don’t play this game for the story, but I’m always surprised at how engaged I can feel with a well laid out sequence of events.

The Story in GW1 was not that amazing, but I have enjoyed it a lot more than the story in GW2.

I absolutely LOVED the competitive part of GW1, it was amazing!
For years on I was extremely dedicated and enjoyed every minute of it.

But when it comes to GW2 I feel out of place, like I don’t belong there.
They made GW1 for PvP but they decided to drop every aspect of it and went for a casual game.

I feel abandoned by Anet, they knew PvPers were dedicated to their game and yet they don’t give us support in their ’’sequel’’.
To be honest, if it didn’t say ‘’Guild Wars’’ 2, I would have NOT bought this game.

Guild Wars 1 is an incredible game but Anet gave up on those who loved everything about it.

I feel that the storytelling is about on a par with old cartoons. He-Man, Dungeons and Dragons, Superfriends, and so on. The occasional element adds a bit of maturity in my opinion, but childish does not seem an inaccurate description to me.

As to presentation of the lore, a bit more in game discovery, perhaps using POI as mentioned above, would be nice. Characters do not have the option to use Google to find stories posted on the internet so I don’t think that such is a good approach to presenting lore.

Vayne.8563:

I think most of the people using the world childish are probably young. There are a lot of older people in my guild who don’t think the story is childish at all.

Totally agree. If old people in your guild don’t think its childish then most who do must be kids. ; P

Karizee.8076:

I just have to say something.

I never played Guild Wars 1, but a friend told me about Guild Wars 2 and I started playing in the beta. Within the first 20 minutes I knew this game was going to be special. And it is.

Having fallen in love with the world and the stories and the combat and the game modes, I’d considered picking up Guild Wars 1 to delve a bit deeper into the backstory, but if anything has convinced me to not play GW1, it’s the GW1 players that post on this forum. All this stuff about soul-crushingly hard content, 800 skills and builds and heroes and henchmen has been an absolute turn off to me. Not to mention the attitude and demeanor of this small minority of GW1 players with their continual bashing of this game and their sour, bitter and hateful treatment of anyone or anything to do with GW2 which is hands down the best MMO I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing.

I honestly wonder if you folks have ever played an MMO before because if you’ve seen the garbage that’s out there you would know that this gorgeous, fascinating and immensely interesting world the devs have created for us is one of a kind jewel in an ocean of mediocrity and to be treasured.

Seriously, if you like GW1 better, why don’t you play GW1 instead of posting here?

Why? Because the devs abandoned GW1 to make a better game for us – the GW1 players that made GW2 possible in the first place. That was ANETs promise and that s where they have failed the most. And then people like you go badmouth us without even playing GW1 which is better in most aspects than GW2.

Many of the core concepts of GW2 were massacred for the mass appeal of the common WoW player that equates all MMOs with WoW and grind with fun. Muh gear progression! Muh elitism! I m honestly surprised we dont have mounts by this point.
Other elements of the game simply arent up to par – like PvP, the story etc. and then there are things like game performance and bad game mechanics that keep popping up.

Does that mean GW2 is kitten? No. But its only the second best and while things have improved over the last few months it would take a miracle to top GW1.

Vogue.6305:

JBDanger.2603:

I find it funny that the ESRB rating is T for teen when it should be E for everyone. The writing is so childish, that I’ve seen saturday morning cartoons with a better plot line.

Ugh! This! So much this. I was literally talking to my guildies today about how childish the game feels in comparison to GW1. We don’t even have a real fleshed out enemy in this game. I mean we have the elder dragon, but they literally get no character development themselves at all. They woke up, destroyed everything, and now what? What do they want?)

Hmmm…. with regards to the elder dragons getting character development, I honestly do not think they need to. As for what do they want? Simple: dragon is hungry, dragon eats magic.

SonicTHI.3217:

Karizee.8076:

I just have to say something.

I never played Guild Wars 1, but a friend told me about Guild Wars 2 and I started playing in the beta. Within the first 20 minutes I knew this game was going to be special. And it is.

Having fallen in love with the world and the stories and the combat and the game modes, I’d considered picking up Guild Wars 1 to delve a bit deeper into the backstory, but if anything has convinced me to not play GW1, it’s the GW1 players that post on this forum. All this stuff about soul-crushingly hard content, 800 skills and builds and heroes and henchmen has been an absolute turn off to me. Not to mention the attitude and demeanor of this small minority of GW1 players with their continual bashing of this game and their sour, bitter and hateful treatment of anyone or anything to do with GW2 which is hands down the best MMO I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing.

I honestly wonder if you folks have ever played an MMO before because if you’ve seen the garbage that’s out there you would know that this gorgeous, fascinating and immensely interesting world the devs have created for us is one of a kind jewel in an ocean of mediocrity and to be treasured.

Seriously, if you like GW1 better, why don’t you play GW1 instead of posting here?

Why? Because the devs abandoned GW1 to make a better game for us – the GW1 players that made GW2 possible in the first place. That was ANETs promise and that s where they have failed the most. And then people like you go badmouth us without even playing GW1 which is better in most aspects than GW2.

Many of the core concepts of GW2 were massacred for the mass appeal of the common WoW player that equates all MMOs with WoW and grind with fun. Muh gear progression! Muh elitism! I m honestly surprised we dont have mounts by this point.
Other elements of the game simply arent up to par – like PvP, the story etc. and then there are things like game performance and bad game mechanics that keep popping up.

Does that mean GW2 is kitten? No. But its only the second best and while things have improved over the last few months it would take a miracle to top GW1.

And there are some of us who were Guild Wars 1 players that like Guild Wars 2 as well and wouldn’t want to go back to Guild Wars 1. It’s a divided community but it’s always been a divided community.

Malkavian.4516:

Vogue.6305:

JBDanger.2603:

I find it funny that the ESRB rating is T for teen when it should be E for everyone. The writing is so childish, that I’ve seen saturday morning cartoons with a better plot line.

Ugh! This! So much this. I was literally talking to my guildies today about how childish the game feels in comparison to GW1. We don’t even have a real fleshed out enemy in this game. I mean we have the elder dragon, but they literally get no character development themselves at all. They woke up, destroyed everything, and now what? What do they want?)

Hmmm…. with regards to the elder dragons getting character development, I honestly do not think they need to. As for what do they want? Simple: dragon is hungry, dragon eats magic.

I really can’t agree with this. Having an intricate villain with multiple layers makes a story so much more interesting. Think about some of the great movie/comic/literature villains and how they contributed to creating a captivating plot… palpatine/the joker/ hannibal lecter/ even Smaug as a response to your dragon question. Remember all the ambition Anet showed pre-release? A game with such high aspirations deserves a better enemy than “dragon is hungry, dragon eats magic”. As players, we literally have no connection with zhaitan other than knowing that he damaged tyria. Our characters aren’t personally affected by him to begin with. Most of the contact we have with his devastation is secondhand… we help NPCs who were directly affected by his destruction.

Think about it like this. In GW1 prophecies, our first enemy was the charr… they destroyed our home, and from this point, the game furthers the plot, giving you a personal connection with the enemies you encounter. In factions, you’re working to fight this plague that threatens to wipe out your country and you see that even one of your fellow students has become infected, from here the story builds. In NF, Varesh Ossa invades your country, killing many of your comrades and capturing your leader, the entire plot deepens from this point.

Also, the threat and devastation of the dragon doesn’t really become an active presence in the game until you get to orr, which is pretty late on in the game. When I’m starting out and even in the surrounding areas when I’m mid-level, I have no real interaction with the dragon’s corruption aside from the few areas of the map that have rise.

In prophecies, the evidence of the searing was all around me. When I wasn’t fighting charr, my quests (hearts for gw2) involved me helping people overcome the problems the searing had caused them. I could give examples about factions and NF, but this post’ll get too long.

Another thing, if zhaitan’s power is really so threatening, then shouldn’t his presence reach into the subplots of our story? My last two characters I worked on were humans, so those are the ones I remember the best: the centaurs and bandits seem unphased and unaffected by the presence of the dragon. Especially among the centaurs. As a nation of intelligent beings (I mean, ventari was a centaur!), you would think something as powerful as the dragon would somehow affect their actions in the story . Also Caudecus plays a significant role in the human storyline, but I’m not even sure if he ever even brings up the elder dragon.

This is all stuff I feel like anet could improve upon when they introduce content for the other dragons. Thoughts?

Vogue.6305:

Malkavian.4516:

Vogue.6305:

JBDanger.2603:

I find it funny that the ESRB rating is T for teen when it should be E for everyone. The writing is so childish, that I’ve seen saturday morning cartoons with a better plot line.

Ugh! This! So much this. I was literally talking to my guildies today about how childish the game feels in comparison to GW1. We don’t even have a real fleshed out enemy in this game. I mean we have the elder dragon, but they literally get no character development themselves at all. They woke up, destroyed everything, and now what? What do they want?)

Hmmm…. with regards to the elder dragons getting character development, I honestly do not think they need to. As for what do they want? Simple: dragon is hungry, dragon eats magic.

I really can’t agree with this. Having an intricate villain with multiple layers makes a story so much more interesting. Think about some of the great movie/comic/literature villains and how they contributed to creating a captivating plot… palpatine/the joker/ hannibal lecter/ even Smaug as a response to your dragon question. Remember all the ambition Anet showed pre-release? A game with such high aspirations deserves a better enemy than “dragon is hungry, dragon eats magic”. As players, we literally have no connection with zhaitan other than knowing that he damaged tyria. Our characters aren’t personally affected by him to begin with. Most of the contact we have with his devastation is secondhand… we help NPCs who were directly affected by his destruction.

Think about it like this. In GW1 prophecies, our first enemy was the charr… they destroyed our home, and from this point, the game furthers the plot, giving you a personal connection with the enemies you encounter. In factions, you’re working to fight this plague that threatens to wipe out your country and you see that even one of your fellow students has become infected, from here the story builds. In NF, Varesh Ossa invades your country, killing many of your comrades and capturing your leader, the entire plot deepens from this point.

Also, the threat and devastation of the dragon doesn’t really become an active presence in the game until you get to orr, which is pretty late on in the game. When I’m starting out and even in the surrounding areas when I’m mid-level, I have no real interaction with the dragon’s corruption aside from the few areas of the map that have rise.

In prophecies, the evidence of the searing was all around me. When I wasn’t fighting charr, my quests (hearts for gw2) involved me helping people overcome the problems the searing had caused them. I could give examples about factions and NF, but this post’ll get too long.

Another thing, if zhaitan’s power is really so threatening, then shouldn’t his presence reach into the subplots of our story? My last two characters I worked on were humans, so those are the ones I remember the best: the centaurs and bandits seem unphased and unaffected by the presence of the dragon. Especially among the centaurs. As a nation of intelligent beings (I mean, ventari was a centaur!), you would think something as powerful as the dragon would somehow affect their actions in the story . Also Caudecus plays a significant role in the human storyline, but I’m not even sure if he ever even brings up the elder dragon.

This is all stuff I feel like anet could improve upon when they introduce content for the other dragons. Thoughts?

Your comments about elder dragons and humans are intentional. It’s like World War 2. If you lived on an isolated mountain farm and didn’t listen to the radio, World Wars 2 wouldn’t have affected you nearly as much as it did if you lived in Europe somewhere. It’s a big world. People tend to focus on what’s happening locally.

The charr have the dragon brand right in the middle of their territory. The Asuran were driven to the surface by an elder dragon. The norn were driven from their homes by Jormag. The Sylvari believe their birth is somehow related to the dragon and they have the undead on their door step.

But Divinity’s Reach is removed from all that. Those dragons at the start of the story aren’t their problem. They have immediate problems. The development of leaving your insular human home and entering a bigger world is part of the human story.

Vogue.6305:

JBDanger.2603:

I find it funny that the ESRB rating is T for teen when it should be E for everyone. The writing is so childish, that I’ve seen saturday morning cartoons with a better plot line.

Ugh! This! So much this. I was literally talking to my guildies today about how childish the game feels in comparison to GW1. We don’t even have a real fleshed out enemy in this game. I mean we have the elder dragon, but they literally get no character development themselves at all. They woke up, destroyed everything, and now what? What do they want? Idk maybe that’s clear in the lore somewhere, but the storyline doesn’t make it clear other than that they like to destroy things and we need to kill them.

At least GW1 had good villains—Varesh, who turned to Abaddon to try and benefit her nation. Shiro- who wanted revenge from Cantha. The Lich- he wanted to complete the flameseeker prophecies and unleash the titans. All these villains have strong back stories as well- the elder dragons literally just woke up and were like “gonna go wreck tyria now kbye”

I know I’m ranting here but one last thing. The way the storyline is laid out is so completely linear. From the moment you make your character you basically know you’re gonna kill zhaitan. In prophecies, you:

1. Try to save ascalon
2. Realize this is futile and get refugees to LA
3. Help the white mantle against the undead
4. Help the white mantle against the shining blaed
5. PLOT TWIST white mantle are evil
6. Help the shining blade
7. * My memory gets fuzzy after this point* There’s a traitor and you have to become ascended bc you’re the chosen.
8. Free evennia and kill markis
9. Help the dwarves defeat the stone summit to gain them as allies
10. KIll your ally vizier khilbron who PLOT TWIST was the Lich

see how engaging that storyline is compared to one where you’re just on a quest to kill a dragon? I REALLY want to like this game more. That’s why I’ve stuck around this long. But please anet make your characters more engaging. Also I hate logan (but that’s just personal :P)

The prophecies campaign litterally had the best story of all the guild wars games imo.
Absolutely adored and love the story of the prophecies, which also seemed to be the longest of them all if im not mistaken.

I remember back when I started playing GW1, it was a week after it had released I believe – and when I then first encountered the charr, these cat like people were extremely ferocious, and I honostly “feared” them.

One of the things that I remember the best spoiler alert was when King Adelbern banish Rurik.
I found the writing of the prophecies to be superb, the character development of Rurik was amazing as well – I was in shock (sort of :P) when he was killed in the shiverpeaks – only to find that you had to fight him at the end of the story because the lich had reanimated him; where these two parts were really far apart in the story from one another so you wouldn’t expect this to happen at all, in any way.

ZoiN.4280:

Vogue.6305:

JBDanger.2603:

I find it funny that the ESRB rating is T for teen when it should be E for everyone. The writing is so childish, that I’ve seen saturday morning cartoons with a better plot line.

Ugh! This! So much this. I was literally talking to my guildies today about how childish the game feels in comparison to GW1. We don’t even have a real fleshed out enemy in this game. I mean we have the elder dragon, but they literally get no character development themselves at all. They woke up, destroyed everything, and now what? What do they want? Idk maybe that’s clear in the lore somewhere, but the storyline doesn’t make it clear other than that they like to destroy things and we need to kill them.

At least GW1 had good villains—Varesh, who turned to Abaddon to try and benefit her nation. Shiro- who wanted revenge from Cantha. The Lich- he wanted to complete the flameseeker prophecies and unleash the titans. All these villains have strong back stories as well- the elder dragons literally just woke up and were like “gonna go wreck tyria now kbye”

I know I’m ranting here but one last thing. The way the storyline is laid out is so completely linear. From the moment you make your character you basically know you’re gonna kill zhaitan. In prophecies, you:

1. Try to save ascalon
2. Realize this is futile and get refugees to LA
3. Help the white mantle against the undead
4. Help the white mantle against the shining blaed
5. PLOT TWIST white mantle are evil
6. Help the shining blade
7. * My memory gets fuzzy after this point* There’s a traitor and you have to become ascended bc you’re the chosen.
8. Free evennia and kill markis
9. Help the dwarves defeat the stone summit to gain them as allies
10. KIll your ally vizier khilbron who PLOT TWIST was the Lich

see how engaging that storyline is compared to one where you’re just on a quest to kill a dragon? I REALLY want to like this game more. That’s why I’ve stuck around this long. But please anet make your characters more engaging. Also I hate logan (but that’s just personal :P)

The prophecies campaign litterally had the best story of all the guild wars games imo.
Absolutely adored and love the story of the prophecies, which also seemed to be the longest of them all if im not mistaken.

See I had issues with the Prophecies story. I thought my character was too stupid. He accepted the White Mantle, when I thought them to be untrustworthy. He was happy to give the scepter of orr over to a guy I didn’t trust at all. I liked neither the southern shiverpeake missions nor the maguuma missions.

There was a great moment toward the end with a plot twist, but over all, it was a relatively predictable standard fantasy story.

Rurik was so cliche it wasn’t funny.

Vayne.8563:

ZoiN.4280:

Vogue.6305:

JBDanger.2603:

I find it funny that the ESRB rating is T for teen when it should be E for everyone. The writing is so childish, that I’ve seen saturday morning cartoons with a better plot line.

Ugh! This! So much this. I was literally talking to my guildies today about how childish the game feels in comparison to GW1. We don’t even have a real fleshed out enemy in this game. I mean we have the elder dragon, but they literally get no character development themselves at all. They woke up, destroyed everything, and now what? What do they want? Idk maybe that’s clear in the lore somewhere, but the storyline doesn’t make it clear other than that they like to destroy things and we need to kill them.

At least GW1 had good villains—Varesh, who turned to Abaddon to try and benefit her nation. Shiro- who wanted revenge from Cantha. The Lich- he wanted to complete the flameseeker prophecies and unleash the titans. All these villains have strong back stories as well- the elder dragons literally just woke up and were like “gonna go wreck tyria now kbye”

I know I’m ranting here but one last thing. The way the storyline is laid out is so completely linear. From the moment you make your character you basically know you’re gonna kill zhaitan. In prophecies, you:

1. Try to save ascalon
2. Realize this is futile and get refugees to LA
3. Help the white mantle against the undead
4. Help the white mantle against the shining blaed
5. PLOT TWIST white mantle are evil
6. Help the shining blade
7. * My memory gets fuzzy after this point* There’s a traitor and you have to become ascended bc you’re the chosen.
8. Free evennia and kill markis
9. Help the dwarves defeat the stone summit to gain them as allies
10. KIll your ally vizier khilbron who PLOT TWIST was the Lich

see how engaging that storyline is compared to one where you’re just on a quest to kill a dragon? I REALLY want to like this game more. That’s why I’ve stuck around this long. But please anet make your characters more engaging. Also I hate logan (but that’s just personal :P)

The prophecies campaign litterally had the best story of all the guild wars games imo.
Absolutely adored and love the story of the prophecies, which also seemed to be the longest of them all if im not mistaken.

See I had issues with the Prophecies story. I thought my character was too stupid. He accepted the White Mantle, when I thought them to be untrustworthy. He was happy to give the scepter of orr over to a guy I didn’t trust at all. I liked neither the southern shiverpeake missions nor the maguuma missions.

There was a great moment toward the end with a plot twist, but over all, it was a relatively predictable standard fantasy story.

Rurik was so cliche it wasn’t funny.

Could be because I was 17 at the time when the game came out that I didden’t think of it that way, but I certainly felt immersed, and otherwise was pulled in to the story.

ZoiN.4280:

Vayne.8563:

ZoiN.4280:

Vogue.6305:

JBDanger.2603:

I find it funny that the ESRB rating is T for teen when it should be E for everyone. The writing is so childish, that I’ve seen saturday morning cartoons with a better plot line.

Ugh! This! So much this. I was literally talking to my guildies today about how childish the game feels in comparison to GW1. We don’t even have a real fleshed out enemy in this game. I mean we have the elder dragon, but they literally get no character development themselves at all. They woke up, destroyed everything, and now what? What do they want? Idk maybe that’s clear in the lore somewhere, but the storyline doesn’t make it clear other than that they like to destroy things and we need to kill them.

At least GW1 had good villains—Varesh, who turned to Abaddon to try and benefit her nation. Shiro- who wanted revenge from Cantha. The Lich- he wanted to complete the flameseeker prophecies and unleash the titans. All these villains have strong back stories as well- the elder dragons literally just woke up and were like “gonna go wreck tyria now kbye”

I know I’m ranting here but one last thing. The way the storyline is laid out is so completely linear. From the moment you make your character you basically know you’re gonna kill zhaitan. In prophecies, you:

1. Try to save ascalon
2. Realize this is futile and get refugees to LA
3. Help the white mantle against the undead
4. Help the white mantle against the shining blaed
5. PLOT TWIST white mantle are evil
6. Help the shining blade
7. * My memory gets fuzzy after this point* There’s a traitor and you have to become ascended bc you’re the chosen.
8. Free evennia and kill markis
9. Help the dwarves defeat the stone summit to gain them as allies
10. KIll your ally vizier khilbron who PLOT TWIST was the Lich

see how engaging that storyline is compared to one where you’re just on a quest to kill a dragon? I REALLY want to like this game more. That’s why I’ve stuck around this long. But please anet make your characters more engaging. Also I hate logan (but that’s just personal :P)

The prophecies campaign litterally had the best story of all the guild wars games imo.
Absolutely adored and love the story of the prophecies, which also seemed to be the longest of them all if im not mistaken.

See I had issues with the Prophecies story. I thought my character was too stupid. He accepted the White Mantle, when I thought them to be untrustworthy. He was happy to give the scepter of orr over to a guy I didn’t trust at all. I liked neither the southern shiverpeake missions nor the maguuma missions.

There was a great moment toward the end with a plot twist, but over all, it was a relatively predictable standard fantasy story.

Rurik was so cliche it wasn’t funny.

Could be because I was 17 at the time when the game came out that I didden’t think of it that way, but I certainly felt immersed, and otherwise was pulled in to the story.

Yeah I was in my 40s and I’d read a lot of fantasy and scifi. For a multiplayer game the story was fine. Not great, but fine.

The thing is Guild Wars 2’s story is uneven, and one of the design decisions made pre launch made the personal story particularly weak.

They decided to do everything in 10 level chapters. It makes it feel quite artificial. They wrote the story to the game requirements instead of writing the game to story requirements.

Some of the stories I really liked. I didn’t love most of the human stories for example, but the charr and sylvari stories I thought were quite good.