Guild Wars 2

A lot of the criticism of the recent updates has been pretty hostile, which has undercut the importance of what is actually being said. I thought it might be more friendly, and fun, if we made a game out of it

So, imagine that ANet “patched” other forms of media, what do you think would happen?

Chapter 1: Harry Potter, a young orphan living with his cruel Aunt and Uncle, meets Hagrid, who tells him that he is a wizard.

Chapter 2: Harry arrives at Hogwarts and is sorted into Gryffindor. He then recieves his first piece of Owl post, inviting him to Hogwarts.

Chapter 3: Harry and Ron save Hermione from a troll in the girls’ bathroom.

Chapter 4: Harry meets Ron and Hermione. Hagrid tells him about Voldemort.

Chapter 5: Hagrid is very afraid that someone will take his pet dragon away. Nothing happens, everything is fine.

Chapter 6: Harry is introduced to Hagrid by Ron. Ron is put in charge of recruiting the houses to fight Voldemort.

Chapter 7: Harry, Ron and Hermione apparate to the location of the Philosophers Stone, and successfully save it.

Chapter 8: Harry learns that Voldemort plans to use something called a “Philosopher’s stone”. Professor McGonagall, who apparently has known them all along, tells them the Stone is safe.

Chapter 8: Harry, Ron and Hermione fight their way through several trials to get to the location of the Philosopher’s Stone.

Chapter 9: Harry leads the attack on Voldemort, who climbs a wall and doesn’t do anything while everyone throws spells at him.

I think that J K Rowling would be well served to consider these edits. A lot of her readers are quite young, and I think they find the original linear narrative too confusing.

This is a really bad analogy. Because Harry Potter is divided into books and those books all have different plots.

The first ten levels of your story are initiated by a single question in character generation. To all intents and purposes, nothing that happens in those chapters gets brought up in the chapter 11 plus story, because it’s done. That’s it. It’s finished. It’s final.

Those characters are done and you’re onto something new. The 11-20 story which is something that pertains to a different question in character generation. It’s a completely story arc done. It doesn’t affect anything that you’re doing in the 21-30 story at all.

So you can’t compare this to a set of books that builds on itself, and it’s not fair too.

It’s more like a serial than a novel, and if you’re going to compare it to anything, that would be the thing to compare it to.

I’ve always felt the greatest flaw in the story of this game was the ten level requirement that pretty much had to shoehorn the story into the pattern. That meant writers had massive constraints they wouldn’t have had if they could just “write a story”.

Vayne.8563:

This is a really bad analogy. Because Harry Potter is divided into books and those books all have different plots.

The first ten levels of your story are initiated by a single question in character generation. To all intents and purposes, nothing that happens in those chapters gets brought up in the chapter 11 plus story, because it’s done. That’s it. It’s finished. It’s final.

Those characters are done and you’re onto something new. The 11-20 story which is something that pertains to a different question in character generation. It’s a completely story arc done. It doesn’t affect anything that you’re doing in the 21-30 story at all.

So you can’t compare this to a set of books that builds on itself, and it’s not fair too.

It’s more like a serial than a novel, and if you’re going to compare it to anything, that would be the thing to compare it to.

I’ve always felt the greatest flaw in the story of this game was the ten level requirement that pretty much had to shoehorn the story into the pattern. That meant writers had massive constraints they wouldn’t have had if they could just “write a story”.

He’s actually talking about the story being horribly out of order now.

Hannelore.8153:

Vayne.8563:

This is a really bad analogy. Because Harry Potter is divided into books and those books all have different plots.

The first ten levels of your story are initiated by a single question in character generation. To all intents and purposes, nothing that happens in those chapters gets brought up in the chapter 11 plus story, because it’s done. That’s it. It’s finished. It’s final.

Those characters are done and you’re onto something new. The 11-20 story which is something that pertains to a different question in character generation. It’s a completely story arc done. It doesn’t affect anything that you’re doing in the 21-30 story at all.

So you can’t compare this to a set of books that builds on itself, and it’s not fair too.

It’s more like a serial than a novel, and if you’re going to compare it to anything, that would be the thing to compare it to.

I’ve always felt the greatest flaw in the story of this game was the ten level requirement that pretty much had to shoehorn the story into the pattern. That meant writers had massive constraints they wouldn’t have had if they could just “write a story”.

He’s actually talking about the story being horribly out of order now.

If he was doing that, he did a bad job, because the story only gets out of order at the very end. It’s the last 70 and 80 level stories. But he’s starting with Chapter 1.

No, I don’t think he’s talking about the story being out of order. I think he’s talking about having to wait ten levels to play the story.

If he’s talking about it out of order, well, there’s nothing to talk about. Anet saw the problem and said they’re working on it. It’s not like Anet said it was final the way it was or good the way it was.

I’m not sure anyone disagrees with the fact that the end of the story has been completed butchered.

Vayne.8563:

If he was doing that, he did a bad job

He did a good job. You didn’t get it. Accept it, everyone make misstakes.

Elrey.5472:

Vayne.8563:

If he was doing that, he did a bad job

He did a good job. You didn’t get it. Accept it, everyone make misstakes.

If he was trying to say the end of the story was screwed and I didn’t get it, he did a bad job at communicating it to me.

There are two sets of complaints about the story. One it’s out of order. Two it’s confined to chapters that you have to wait to get to.

If he’s only talking about the end being out of order, Anet knows about it, they’re not denying it, no one is questioning it and there’s no real need to simplify it.

No one, not even Anet has said it’s good the way it is or it’s staying the way it is. So what’s the purpose of the post then?

Edit: I would assume you’d have to be familiar with Harry Potter to get it anyway. I should probably get out more. But it’s still not something that needed to be posted if he’s trying to convince Anet there’s a problem. They know.

Vayne.8563:

If he was doing that, he did a bad job, because the story only gets out of order at the very end. It’s the last 70 and 80 level stories. But he’s starting with Chapter 1.

No, I don’t think he’s talking about the story being out of order. I think he’s talking about having to wait ten levels to play the story.

If he’s talking about it out of order, well, there’s nothing to talk about. Anet saw the problem and said they’re working on it. It’s not like Anet said it was final the way it was or good the way it was.

I’m not sure anyone disagrees with the fact that the end of the story has been completed butchered.

Wow, you really will take any opportunity to attack other players if they’re critical of something won’t you?

Firstly, yes, I was I obviously referring to the story being out of order.

Secondly, no, the story doesn’t just go out of order at the end. Several points have been changed. The earliest off the top of my head being the fact that you now get your mail and go to Ascalonian Catacombs and Caudecus’ Manor BEFORE Destiny’s Edge meet up in LA and you actually find out who they are. There’s a whole thread talking about the various other problems that have now been introduced.

Thirdly, I was quite clearly only referencing the first book in the Potter series, so this whole “serial” thing actually showed you didn’t understand my post from a GW2 or an HP side.

This was meant as a light hearted dig at the way that we should be treating the narrative of the game with the disregard that the NPE did. We wouldn’t dream of doing it with other media, and we shouldn’t here. The people who actually wrote the story presumably care about it more than I do, and their work deserves to be treated with the same respect we’d give novels or films.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Vayne.8563:

If he was doing that, he did a bad job, because the story only gets out of order at the very end. It’s the last 70 and 80 level stories. But he’s starting with Chapter 1.

No, I don’t think he’s talking about the story being out of order. I think he’s talking about having to wait ten levels to play the story.

If he’s talking about it out of order, well, there’s nothing to talk about. Anet saw the problem and said they’re working on it. It’s not like Anet said it was final the way it was or good the way it was.

I’m not sure anyone disagrees with the fact that the end of the story has been completed butchered.

Wow, you really will take any opportunity to attack other players if they’re critical of something won’t you?

Firstly, yes, I was I obviously referring to the story being out of order.

Secondly, no, the story doesn’t just go out of order at the end. Several points have been changed. The earliest off the top of my head being the fact that you now get your mail and go to Ascalonian Catacombs and Caudecus’ Manor BEFORE Destiny’s Edge meet up in LA and you actually find out who they are. There’s a whole thread talking about the various other problems that have now been introduced.

Thirdly, I was quite clearly only referencing the first book in the Potter series, so this whole “serial” thing actually showed you didn’t understand my post from a GW2 or an HP side.

This was meant as a light hearted dig at the way that we should be treating the narrative of the game with the disregard that the NPE did. We wouldn’t dream of doing it with other media, and we shouldn’t here. The people who actually wrote the story presumably care about it more than I do, and their work deserves to be treated with the same respect we’d give novels or films.

I wasn’t attacking you. I didn’t get it because I don’t know enough about Harry Potter to get it. My bad. Had you done it with Game of Thrones I’d have gotten in.

That said, Anet knows about it and they’re working on it.

Edit: Even I’ve said the end of the story has been pretty much destroyed.

Vayne.8563:

I wasn’t attacking you. I didn’t get it because I don’t know enough about Harry Potter to get it. My bad. Had you done it with Game of Thrones I’d have gotten in.

That said, Anet knows about it and they’re working on it.

Edit: Even I’ve said the end of the story has been pretty much destroyed.

Well then maybe you could work on your communication

I did set this up as a game, and people can bring their own stories (I’d avoid GoT as it’s pretty spoilerific).

The point though isn’t just that ANet should be working on it, it’s to stress that this sort of thing shouldn’t happen at all. The NPE, SAB, heck even the trait changes can all be made without disrespecting the game. But acting like it doesn’t matter if the story doesn’t make sense illustrates a lack of respect for what the game actually is. Again, no one would dream of doing this to a novel of a film (well, FOX did it to Firefly, but look what happened there).

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Vayne.8563:

I wasn’t attacking you. I didn’t get it because I don’t know enough about Harry Potter to get it. My bad. Had you done it with Game of Thrones I’d have gotten in.

That said, Anet knows about it and they’re working on it.

Edit: Even I’ve said the end of the story has been pretty much destroyed.

Well then maybe you could work on your communication

I did set this up as a game, and people can bring their own stories (I’d avoid GoT as it’s pretty spoilerific).

The point though isn’t just that ANet should be working on it, it’s to stress that this sort of thing shouldn’t happen at all. The NPE, SAB, heck even the trait changes can all be made without disrespecting the game. But acting like it doesn’t matter if the story doesn’t make sense illustrates a lack of respect for what the game actually is. Again, no one would dream of doing this to a novel of a film (well, FOX did it to Firefly, but look what happened there).

No question at all, the changes to the end of the Personal story was bad. Not only no argument from me, but I’ve already said it elsewhere. They’re very bad.

I read some of Harry Potter when it first came out and never saw the movies, so I got the wrong end of the stick…that’s all.

As I said, my bad.

Vayne.8563:

No question at all, the changes to the end of the Personal story was bad. Not only no argument from me, but I’ve already said it elsewhere. They’re very bad.

I read some of Harry Potter when it first came out and never saw the movies, so I got the wrong end of the stick…that’s all.

As I said, my bad.

Cool cool

Vayne.8563:

I wasn’t attacking you. I didn’t get it because I don’t know enough about Harry Potter to get it. My bad. Had you done it with Game of Thrones I’d have gotten in.

That said, Anet knows about it and they’re working on it.

Edit: Even I’ve said the end of the story has been pretty much destroyed.

This post makes it clear that you didn’t read the OP at all. To make a conscise point:

Chapter 3: Harry and Ron save Hermione.

Chapter 4: Harry meets Ron and Hermione.

The OP basically did this three times. One chapter Harry helps/saves XYZ; next chapter Harry meets/finds XYZ.

You don’t need to know about Harry Potter, since aside from names, it makes no reference to it. Switch out the names of anyone – even people from different stories – and you get the same scenario.

As to ArenaNet fixing the PS… I’m becoming doubtful. No word on such, and they’ve already implemented “fixes” stealthly. While the two-three people who went through it said no changes, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were minor changes that fixes the inconsistencies but keeps the story order, as I’ve heard that people who never played it before didn’t realize any story errors (such people likely didn’t pick the Priory’s plan during Further into Orr and apparently didn’t pay attention to how they kill an Eye then are introduced to the Eyes – but if Anet fixed the dialogue after the 9/30 update, but not the story order, then naturally they wouldn’t notice these things).

CrashTestAuto.9108:

A lot of the criticism of the recent updates has been pretty hostile, which has undercut the importance of what is actually being said. I thought it might be more friendly, and fun, if we made a game out of it

So, imagine that ANet “patched” other forms of media, what do you think would happen?

Chapter 1: Harry Potter, a young orphan living with his cruel Aunt and Uncle, meets Hagrid, who tells him that he is a wizard.

Chapter 2: Harry arrives at Hogwarts and is sorted into Gryffindor. He then recieves his first piece of Owl post, inviting him to Hogwarts.

Chapter 3: Harry and Ron save Hermione from a troll in the girls’ bathroom.

Chapter 4: Harry meets Ron and Hermione. Hagrid tells him about Voldemort.

Chapter 5: Hagrid is very afraid that someone will take his pet dragon away. Nothing happens, everything is fine.

Chapter 6: Harry is introduced to Hagrid by Ron. Ron is put in charge of recruiting the houses to fight Voldemort.

Chapter 7: Harry, Ron and Hermione apparate to the location of the Philosophers Stone, and successfully save it.

Chapter 8: Harry learns that Voldemort plans to use something called a “Philosopher’s stone”. Professor McGonagall, who apparently has known them all along, tells them the Stone is safe.

Chapter 8: Harry, Ron and Hermione fight their way through several trials to get to the location of the Philosopher’s Stone.

Chapter 9: Harry leads the attack on Voldemort, who climbs a wall and doesn’t do anything while everyone throws spells at him.

I think that J K Rowling would be well served to consider these edits. A lot of her readers are quite young, and I think they find the original linear narrative too confusing.

What good do you expect to come out of this apart from some posts that talk about storylines that dont have anything to do with gw2?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Vayne.8563:

I wasn’t attacking you. I didn’t get it because I don’t know enough about Harry Potter to get it. My bad. Had you done it with Game of Thrones I’d have gotten in.

That said, Anet knows about it and they’re working on it.

Edit: Even I’ve said the end of the story has been pretty much destroyed.

This post makes it clear that you didn’t read the OP at all. To make a conscise point:

Chapter 3: Harry and Ron save Hermione.

Chapter 4: Harry meets Ron and Hermione.

The OP basically did this three times. One chapter Harry helps/saves XYZ; next chapter Harry meets/finds XYZ.

You don’t need to know about Harry Potter, since aside from names, it makes no reference to it. Switch out the names of anyone – even people from different stories – and you get the same scenario.

As to ArenaNet fixing the PS… I’m becoming doubtful. No word on such, and they’ve already implemented “fixes” stealthly. While the two-three people who went through it said no changes, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were minor changes that fixes the inconsistencies but keeps the story order, as I’ve heard that people who never played it before didn’t realize any story errors (such people likely didn’t pick the Priory’s plan during Further into Orr and apparently didn’t pay attention to how they kill an Eye then are introduced to the Eyes – but if Anet fixed the dialogue after the 9/30 update, but not the story order, then naturally they wouldn’t notice these things).

Yes, well, what can you do. I’m sure you read every single word of every single post. I said it was my bad. If that’s not good enough for you, it’s largely irrelevant.

Because it was information I was unfamiliar with, my brain didn’t make that association.

As I said, I agree with what the OP is trying to say, but I don’t like the way he said it. Which is fine. It wasn’t obviously meant to be a serious treatise on world peace.

I tend to read every word of a post that I plan to respond to. I certainly don’t write paragraphs of criticism on posts that I haven’t even read.

And do you really compare everything to a “serious treatise on world peace”? Now I’m very curious as to what this would look like and why you think that people should be posting in that style.

DaShi.1368:

I tend to read every word of a post that I plan to respond to. I certainly don’t write paragraphs of criticism on posts that I haven’t even read.

And do you really compare everything to a “serious treatise on world peace”? Now I’m very curious as to what this would look like and why you think that people should be posting in that style.

Do you take every word everyone writes literally? Why would you do that? Not the first time we’ve crossed paths, so I’ll save myself the breath of responding to you now. I already know your agenda.

I apologize if you took offense, but I simply wanted to know what you consider good writing for a forum post, since you deemed the OP’s post as bad writing. If you’re going to take my posts so literally, why do you complain if I follow your same example? I think you should relax, dial back the paranoia and please be more respectful. I don’t deserve that kind of response.

DaShi.1368:

I apologize if you took offense, but I simply wanted to know what you consider good writing for a forum post, since you deemed the OP’s post as bad writing. If you’re going to take my posts so literally, why do you complain if I follow your same example? I think you should relax.

Look, it’s nothing to do with taking offense. It’s a figure of speech meaning that the OP wasn’t trying to do something serious. That’s ALL it meant.

And I think most people would have understood that.

I did understand that. That’s why I used your example. I thought we were on the same page.

DaShi.1368:

I did understand that. That’s why I used your example. I thought we were on the same page.

Apparently not. Though it is 2 am here, so I’m certainly not as sharp as I would be earlier. In fact, that’s it for me.

OP, sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick. In essence I agree with your issues.

Wanze.8410:

What good do you expect to come out of this apart from some posts that talk about storylines that dont have anything to do with gw2?

As I said, the idea was to introduce a fun way to draw attention to the fact that the Guild Wars 2 storyline shouldn’t be chopped up into incoherency any more than any other form of narrative media.

Vayne.8563:

Apparently not. Though it is 2 am here, so I’m certainly not as sharp as I would be earlier. In fact, that’s it for me.

OP, sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick. In essence I agree with your issues.

We’re good, I’d just like the thread to actually meander on topic

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Wanze.8410:

What good do you expect to come out of this apart from some posts that talk about storylines that dont have anything to do with gw2?

As I said, the idea was to introduce a fun way to draw attention to the fact that the Guild Wars 2 storyline shouldn’t be chopped up into incoherency any more than any other form of narrative media.

You already mentioned that a whole topic exists on the chopped up storyline so why open up another topic?
This doesnt draw attention to it, it dillutes it. Do you really think a Dev is gonna read Harry Potter and the NPE because he thinks: Wow, this thread must propably include a fun way to draw attention to a totally unrelated issue to which another topic already exists?

Vayne.8563:

Hannelore.8153:

Vayne.8563:

This is a really bad analogy. Because Harry Potter is divided into books and those books all have different plots.

The first ten levels of your story are initiated by a single question in character generation. To all intents and purposes, nothing that happens in those chapters gets brought up in the chapter 11 plus story, because it’s done. That’s it. It’s finished. It’s final.

Those characters are done and you’re onto something new. The 11-20 story which is something that pertains to a different question in character generation. It’s a completely story arc done. It doesn’t affect anything that you’re doing in the 21-30 story at all.

So you can’t compare this to a set of books that builds on itself, and it’s not fair too.

It’s more like a serial than a novel, and if you’re going to compare it to anything, that would be the thing to compare it to.

I’ve always felt the greatest flaw in the story of this game was the ten level requirement that pretty much had to shoehorn the story into the pattern. That meant writers had massive constraints they wouldn’t have had if they could just “write a story”.

He’s actually talking about the story being horribly out of order now.

If he was doing that, he did a bad job, because the story only gets out of order at the very end. It’s the last 70 and 80 level stories. But he’s starting with Chapter 1.

No, I don’t think he’s talking about the story being out of order. I think he’s talking about having to wait ten levels to play the story.

If he’s talking about it out of order, well, there’s nothing to talk about. Anet saw the problem and said they’re working on it. It’s not like Anet said it was final the way it was or good the way it was.

I’m not sure anyone disagrees with the fact that the end of the story has been completed butchered.

No, he did a great job. I got it immediately upon reading his OP the first time. And what do you mean “Anet saw the problem”. Anet created the problem – are you saying they somehow didn’t know that they did it? Maybe they rearranged the Personal Story with their eyes closed or using some kind of randomizer so that they didn’t know how it would turn out? And then maybe they didn’t actually test it?!!!

I mean it is very disconcerting how this is working out. I’m a reasonable person – I have trouble believing that Anet didn’t know exactly what they were doing when they rearranged the Personal Story. But that is part of the problem: either they knew exactly what they did and thought it was good anyway (???!!!) Or somehow (I can’t imagine how) they didn’t know what they did and didn’t test it and that’s why we’re getting “oops, we’ll fix that” – like they didn’t realize or something.

Vayne.8563:

Yes, well, what can you do. I’m sure you read every single word of every single post. I said it was my bad. If that’s not good enough for you, it’s largely irrelevant.

Because it was information I was unfamiliar with, my brain didn’t make that association.

As I said, I agree with what the OP is trying to say, but I don’t like the way he said it. Which is fine. It wasn’t obviously meant to be a serious treatise on world peace.

I was merely pointing out that knowledge of Harry Potter was, from the start, irrelevant to understanding the OP, and that claiming a lack of that said knowledge is overall irrelevant to the claim of not understanding the OP. I did catch later that you went “my bad” effectively, but I tend to respond to posts as I go.

And I tend to read the full of a post I respond to. Or at least try to.

In the end, the important part is that we all agree that the issue is the issue, regardless of the rest.

Wanze.8410:

You already mentioned that a whole topic exists on the chopped up storyline so why open up another topic?

Draws more attention to the issue at hand.

Basically, the more kittening there is about it, the more likely it’ll get changed so the kittening stops.

Like with Pluto now being considered a planet again.

It’s likely not the best way to go about it, but by drawing more attention to it then you’ll have more voices to add.

If the OP named this “Why Chapter 7 and 8 shouldn’t have been altered” then those who don’t care about the PS wouldn’t necessarily look. But those interested in the NPE in general will with a title that mentions the NPE. And the chapter rearrangement is part of the NPE so it isn’t completely irrelevant.

Wanze.8410:

You already mentioned that a whole topic exists on the chopped up storyline so why open up another topic?
This doesnt draw attention to it, it dillutes it. Do you really think a Dev is gonna read Harry Potter and the NPE because he thinks: Wow, this thread must propably include a fun way to draw attention to a totally unrelated issue to which another topic already exists?

Okay, while Vayne was a bit out of line, he was at least addressing something he thought was a mistake in the OP. What the heck are you even doing here? If you don’t like or understand the point of my thread, ignore it, it doesn’t affect you.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Wanze.8410:

You already mentioned that a whole topic exists on the chopped up storyline so why open up another topic?
This doesnt draw attention to it, it dillutes it. Do you really think a Dev is gonna read Harry Potter and the NPE because he thinks: Wow, this thread must propably include a fun way to draw attention to a totally unrelated issue to which another topic already exists?

Okay, while Vayne was a bit out of line, he was at least addressing something he thought was a mistake in the OP. What the heck are you even doing here? If you don’t like or understand the point of my thread, ignore it, it doesn’t affect you.

I just think the whole creation of this topic is pretty useless because a topic already exists. It doesnt lead to a constructive discussion about the issue either. It just invites people to make up cryptic analogies about what you think is wrong with the game.
I rather have the devs read the topics with constructive feedback than stuff like this.

I will follow your advice and ignore this topic as it was already reported by someone else.

Huh, I was about to respond here but apparently it’s a “let’s bash Vayne” thread so I’ll use the door. Still on the left, right?

Sigh… well that could have been fun

I personally liked the analogy. It makes it easier for people to understand the issues with the personal story since the NPE patch. And, what’s more relatable than Harry Potter?

Fernling.1729:

I personally liked the analogy. It makes it easier for people to understand the issues with the personal story since the NPE patch. And, what’s more relatable than Harry Potter?

Episode 1 Frodo throws The One Ring into the volcano.
Episode 2 Bilbo gives Frodo The One Ring.

: )

Ashen.2907:

Fernling.1729:

I personally liked the analogy. It makes it easier for people to understand the issues with the personal story since the NPE patch. And, what’s more relatable than Harry Potter?

Episode 1 Frodo throws The One Ring into the volcano.
Episode 2 Bilbo gives Frodo The One Ring.

: )

Whoa! Spoilers…

I was far enough into the book to know he threw the ring into the volcano, but I had no idea he received the ring.

Fernling.1729:

Ashen.2907:

Fernling.1729:

I personally liked the analogy. It makes it easier for people to understand the issues with the personal story since the NPE patch. And, what’s more relatable than Harry Potter?

Episode 1 Frodo throws The One Ring into the volcano.
Episode 2 Bilbo gives Frodo The One Ring.

: )

Whoa! Spoilers…

I was far enough into the book to know he threw the ring into the volcano, but I had no idea he received the ring.

There we go. That’s what I was looking for

Funny thing is my wife and I watdhed the Bill and Ted movies (again) last night. These out of sequence plot elements work fine there.

Ashen.2907:

Funny thing is my wife and I watdhed the Bill and Ted movies (again) last night. These out of sequence plot elements work fine there.

There’s a difference between designing your series to be viewed anachronistically (ie. non-linear order) and a story designed to be serial. The personal story was written to be serial, and it did a fine job at launch. The problem here is that when they changed the story to be done all in one burst, there’s a lot of other things they forgot to change to better fit this change. That’s without even commenting on one whole chapter being cut out. Mainly, though, people are complaining that it breaks the logic of the game that should have been there from the start.

Then again, my mesmer didn’t even finish her Chapter 3 until she was level 42, and already received mail for both AC and CM. That part of the argument isn’t really valid. I probably would’ve preferred somehow making the personal story a bit more incremental rather than shoving all three or four parts together at the end of the cluster. Not sure that was a practical option, though.