Guild Wars 2

Ok, warning this is going to be a long one to read and contains SPOILERS without BBcode to hide them.

I spent an hour in Caledon Forest the other day focusing mostly on chat because it got interesting.
just want to share a summery of what came out of it and see what everyone thinks / any better suggestions out there.

It all started as a complaint session about the latest patches which I’m sure at this point we’re all used to hearing.
One of the biggest complains being that GW2 has lost a lot of the charm of GW1 and how it could be recovered without losing the good of GW2.
Here’s what came out of it all:

• True Faction divides are severely lacking in GW2, it doesnt really feel any different to be vigil etc then either of the other 2 in the long run.
  This was mostly compared to the Kurzicks and Luxon in GW1 factions, citing how some areas were locked until you completed missions for the faction you were working with.

• the phrase “more giant sea turtles with canons” turned out to be very popular.

• A lot of discussion of bringing back a cross class skill’s option or full skill bar customization which made GW1 feel a lot more personal on a character basis.

• They need more truly huge bosses with proper build up like shiro tagashi, the lich or abaddon which are isolated instances with whole areas under their own rule and don’t just feel like another PVE quest you can watch play out around you.

• The new chapters system is weak at best.
  It was suggested making them more like GW1’s old main storyline missions but bigger.
  Sprawling all in one event instances instead of a case of following “go here” missions from point to point on a list.
  the main fun of GW1 story missions was their long, timed, multi-part quests that gave a real sense of satisfaction if you managed all 3 parts and showed your failures on your main map with those taunting incomplete mission shields otherwise.
  They were like mini dungeons with a coherent and well thought out continuing plot (if you ignore the alien who gave you magic Mursaat pain avoiding enchantments on your armor, but that comes up later)
  It was noted that the current system is so unsatisfying that people have even started to miss the scattershot plot progression from eye of north.

• Someone brought up that the WvW and PvP features are very isolated with no cross over into PVE to help ease people into it like the daily Zaishen PVE in a PvP setting battles of GW1.
  ANet have the framework and could introduce some PVE versions of the WvW maps, requiring players who enter to command a troop of their selected faction through the full scale warzone being fought between players and PVE enemies.
  With a troop system (either used like the elite skill helpers, the pets or even gasp the old GW1 heroes system) under population within these instances wouldn’t be a problem because each player’s troop amount could be upped or lowered to maintain a roughly even team distribution.

All of this lead to the players jointly making a wishful future storyline for gw2 which was unanimously loved by everyone in the conversation.

ANet could bring back the old gods.
Not instantly, let them play out there dragon by dragon plot line as is, but have your main character (who has already started on this path with the eternal alchemy etc) catch the attention of the old gods of their race.
The humans say that the old gods left, that’s about the whole explanation given for it so far. there is so much room for expansion.
The old gods leaving could have taken their superior training methods and special abilitys with them, leaving the races to train themselves as best as possible, which would be a nice lore friendly explanation why characters in GW2 are a lot more standardized in their skill sets and offer a perfect opening for the new customization based skill bar upgrade suggested before to be brought in progressively as your character becomes more attuned with their god and the old ways over time.
the god of choice could also provide the second half of the cross class skill system that was so loved in GW1 without just being a rehash of the old system.

From here you can start tieing up loose ends.
Have some outside influence (possibly) Mordremoth, lead us to the bloodstone from GW1.
Someone uses the bloodstone, reawakens/reinterests the old gods.
They see the worlds plight and help fight the dragons, bits at a time slowly getting more invested in the fight and your team as a whole.
Kormir and Braham for example having a mission end with her avatar leaving the parting words “I’ve not seen such single minded bravery since Koss”
Little hints that the god’s avatars are slowly growing fond of your team members.
Have more dragons pop up after Mordremoth.
Make peace/ reintroduce the Tengu while fighting the dragons
bring us back across to the other continents, show how the luxon and kurzicks have changed in 250 years, or how elona has recovered and morphed without the oppressive destruction of abaddon.
When ANet have had their fill of pumping out more theme based boss dragons, have it turn out that the dragon deaths are all faked in your victory.
Pulling back their army’s, testing your skills so they can launch one final HUGE all out attack against everyone.
This would help explain how the world ending super boss dragon could be killed by an airship and your hero killing waves of his minor minions on deck. he faked it and fell into the cloud layer to regroup / wait for the other dragons to awaken.
It can all culminate in a new single instance chapter, World vs world sized battle multi-part mission with avatars of the old gods and your team vs the dragons and their minions.
- the reward for finishing is an elite skill to become an avatar of your chosen god and a single gw1 style hero to follow you into battle as your disciple/ plot device.
the disciple doesn’t have to be OP, can count as a party member so no bonus to dungeons etc and can scale in usefulness like your character scales in lower level areas.

With the old gods restored, the world is forever changed. factions rewritten.
hell, whole continents can be rebuilt with the power of gods and dragons at play.
Either leaving us picking up the pieces from a shattered world or prospering in a cleansed world of all new problems.
With the dragons truely gone, ore can be new real estate, leading to either the rebirth of the old necromancy obsessed Orians and all the Lich story’s that may follow or an all out war between the races to see who owns the new land (which could give WvW some more context rather then just “fight between servers in the mists”
Use of the bloodstone being key to this awakening of the gods plot could also bring back the Mursaat and introducing the Lore friendly new Great Giants (which is hopefully hinted at in the fractal mission about the Colossus) maybe giving us some more in depth story and explanation of what caused them, drives them, empowers them and just what IS that alien armor enchanter guy??

Hell, final tipping point in the big battle against the dragons could even be your heros having weapons embodied by the power of their gods and given by the alien thing.
Each with its own backstory, for example a norn would prove their weapons power by finally breaking Jormags tooth.

That would all lead to GW2 having a long, vibrant, open storyline that makes sense and could be enjoyed for a long time.
If you don’t think Anet can run 2 separate worlds, one pre and one post the giant battle of gods and dragons (a more complete version of the Pre-searing idea in GW1) then that bodes ill for the future of this game because any future map expansion of any worth would need to be at least equal to the current map in scale if not size.
Lore wise, you have the Asura, with a handy plot point left loose about an insane Asura powerful enough to make full virtual reality game that can bleed over into the real world.
This unused plot device would give one the ability to make “time travel” and back between pre and post work.
The Game system reaching a point beyond power where it has captured the whole of Tyria in a “Matrix” like simulation of its starting point (pre dragons battle)
When you replay a mission from a chapter you already completed, use of the VR stuff already introduced can be used to say the world pre- dragons is now a virtual reality game that the game itself formed when you defeat it in part 4 (which should come out eventually, part 3 being where you beat the game and the boss gets upset breaking out of the system and part 4 being where the game starts bleeding into the real world and you have to fight it back into submission)

You can have “causing a paradox for oblivious character’s still inside the system” which could potentially kill those inside, as an easy get out for why you cant change events when you replay missions.
This gives a lore friendly if not complete explanation for why we can replay missions and content which is little more then a perk without even a “I’m in a flashback” feeling like the books to the past from the end of GW1’s prep for GW2’s release.

Doing this kind of plot could lead to a living story where ANet wont be afraid to destroy whole citys and areas from the ground up and KEEP them destroyed because if someone wants to play in that area before it was destroyed they can use a VR terminal at their home instance to enter that time “simulation” and join others who feel the same.
Plots about young ones going missing from the races because someone wants to use them in the simulations, plots about people in love with NPC versions of people they knew and loved who had died. Plots about Asura trying to tinker with the system and making things even worse.
This all would give so many options for advancement into a branching, more full and personal experience then the current “go here, do that, this will change then a months time we will play with the mad king here so don’t worry about that guy dying he will be replaced with someone else easy” feeling we have had with the living story expansions so far.

And thats it…
There was more said but thats mostly what I could remember/noted down at the time.

Anyone any ideas?
other options and opinions?
anything to add or criticize?

Sounds interesting, but who exactly are the Norn’s, Asura’s, Sylvari’s and Charr’s Gods?

How to improve GW2?

actually make it like a GW game rather than “insert generic MMO with nice gfx and no end game here”

GW1 and expansions are far superior to GW2 in terms of pve, pvp, gvg etc… the ONLY thing GW2 has over GW1 is the gfx.

char have no gods, the flame legions were worshiping titans from gw1….

Sylvari have the dream from the pale tree, which is not a deity on it self….

Norn have the spirits….also not gods,and the humans look at all of them as melandru

Asura have the eternal alchemy, and if you pay attention (even in gw1) there are references that say that the dragons..and even the human gods are part of the eternal alchemy….

It all comes down that asuras were right with their eternal alchemy thing

and dont get me started on krait gods and other non playable races…

i just dont see the poing in the whole god thing you were saying…

As for making the 3 orders compete against each other like kurzick and luxons is ridiculous… they were never against each other, in fact they joined together and made “the pact”….

Even if we added some new factions/orders so we would end up with something like luxon/kurzick..it NEEDS to be something small and local…something isolated from the actual game world, like fractals, or wvw, or things in the mist.(and not just because you get to pvp other players..)

In this time of tyria being attacked by dragons, everywhere you see,and everywhere you go you see all races across all lands joining hands ,forces and knowledge together for a single common goal..to kill the dragon and its minions.

It would make no sense to add something to the game that would say “hey you, yea you..i dont care if youre a char,human,asura,norn..or even a asura, i dont care about the dragons trying to destroy the whole world,this concerns you and you have to pick a side now and fight the ones that picked the other side! (even if they are the ones you were fighting the dragons together with half a hour ago..)”

The factions part was for after the dragons plot line reached its end, mostly following the logic of orr being reclaimed in a cleansed world without a big bad to distract them initially.

The point of the Gods involvment was to offer a way to progress the story onwards in a way that was larger in scale and offering a chance to introduce the changes to the game mechanics we listed before in an organic way through the living story.
It was in chat, you cant expect it all to be polished and perfect, thats why I posted it up to see if anyone could think of a better way to improve GW2 to be closer to GW1 without losing what they have that works well and not annexing the games long lore.

I see what you mean about the gods, we never got that far in chat but personally, while they are all part of the eternal alchemy.
The gods did exist as powerful separate entities, the battle with abaddon was proof of that, manifestations of the alchemy maybe? that was kinda the point, we don’t know much which leaves it open for more plot development down the line.
If it comes to it, the asura if shown enough proof they are working parts of the alchemy would let them help at least.
Char follow strength even if they would be distrustful of gods,
Norn believe in the animal spirits and nothing says nature like melandru.
Sylvari have the pale tree,
If we followed the plot laid down the gods would get impressed by the main cast and in turn their races.
Balthazar with Char, Melandru Norn, Sylvari looking for a pure new source without the pale tree = Dwayna, Asura Lyssa (unsure on that one but duality is a factor of the alchemy) and in my mind Kormir is solidly with the human.
Leaving the last gods as either free for other races in time or to be manifestations of life.

Well one part of this has happened already with the latest patch
a WvW map in a PvE environment – tick
lol

And bringing back the forgotten… and so many hints of stuff that could happen in the library in this newest patch.
The book on the bloodstone mentions hiding magic in the stones to stop the dragons and when they went to retrieve it the 5 “true gods” had formed to protect it.
On of the NPC’s also mentions that magic is disappearing and they must defend it somehow.