Guild Wars 2

Ralesk.3215:

I have finally recreated (mostly anyway) my HoT-beta-era Revenant and since she’s human, I started playing the human storyline again. I definitely didn’t remember being told in the starting cinematics that the character leaves DR to look outside and be of help and that’s how they found Shaemoor in such dire state (then again, my first character was pretty long ago…) — so dunno, maybe they did change the text at some point to make it clear why you’re in Shaemoor outrunning centaurs?

Nope! It’s always said that. There are lots of little bits you might miss if you’re not paying attention, or things you’ll catch once you’re farther into the game and know that this or that is going to be important.

Mat.8137:

I am getting a bit confused by some of these replies though, there seems to be mixed messages with some people saying I have to play as a different type of character to get the full story, while others say I don’t need to play as anyone else.
Some people have mentioned that important plot points are told in “dungeon” missions. I didn’t know anything like that existed, how do I find those kids of missions in the game?

It depends on how much of the back story you want to learn. If you want to catch all the story threads that were seeded early into the game, you need to play the various background stories, but there can be a coherent story without it. As for the dungeons, as you leveled up, you should have gotten mail from a mysterious stranger telling you about them. You can find all 8 dungeons on the world map by looking for the double doors. They are, in order of level progression: Ascalon Catacombs (Plains of Ashford), Caudecus’s Manor (Queensdale), Twilight Arbor (Caledon Forest), Sorrow’s Embrace (Dredgehaunt Cliffs), Citadel of Flame (Fireheart Rise), Honor of the Waves (Frostgorge Sound), Crucible of Eternity (Mount Maelstrom) and Ruins of Arah – which is part of Victory or Death.

Mat.8137:

Aparantly I have to play things in order to understand the plot, though I thought I was since all I’ve been doing is following the little map pointer which tells me where to go. I guess it’s possible that I’ve been doing things out of order but I’m not sure how if it’s automated on the map.

Well, if you’re just going from point to point, barely listening to the story, of course you’re going to be lost and confused. The staff wanted Tyria to feel like a living world, and let players explore rather than run from quest giver to quest giver as they have in most other MMOs. As far as order goes, so long as you head from low-level zones to higher level zones, you’re progressing in time until you reach the level cap, which then requires a bit of wiki research to see what was added when. You should try talking to some of the NPCs who aren’t just named “Villager” or are trying to kill you. You’d be surprised what some of them have to say.

Mat.8137:

The seasons which people have been bringing up seems to be in a gem store but I haven’t found one of those yet in game. I’ve only found ones which accept coins/karma points, unless it’s a web store on the GW2 website somewhere which I’m missing.

Someone said that since I’ve completed the main story I already know who Trahearne is, but I don’t have the slightest clue, so that’s one of many things which I will be looking up later as I sort through the above links.

One last thing. Some people referenced something called LA, what does that mean?

Someone already answered these, but I’ll do it again for completion sake.
*The gem store is in the game and known as the Black Lion Trading Post. By default, it is bound to “O”. Once that menu is open, the first tab is the gem store, where you need gems (either by paying real money, or by exchanging quite a bit of gold), the second is the exchange, and the third is the player-based exchange. If you haven’t been selling your loot through this, I’m surprised and impressed, as this is where goods are really exchanged.
*Trahearne is that rather bland-talking sylvari you meet on Claw Island, then is constantly with you for the rest of the Personal Story. He gets named Marshal of the Pact, wields the blade Caladbolg, and is a necromancer trying to cleanse Orr. He is also the eldest Firstborn, one of the first 12 sylvari to have been born of the Pale Tree. If you head into the instanced area of Fort Trinity (I forget what it’s called right now), he should probably still be there.
*LA is the short form of Lion’s Arch, the same way some refer to Divinity’s Reach as DR. I think that’s more forum and map chat shorthand than any in-game lore you missed.

Astralporing.1957:

In short, you missed the whole LS2 story (and the movie describing ls1 story).

The first time I went from finishing the main story on to Heart of Thorns it also confused me until I decided to stop and go back and do Living World Season 2….it explains so much about what leads you from the main story to expansion. After I finished LW:s2 I went back and continued HoT and I was like “now I get it”

Also, as another player pointed out, play the five different races. Each racial backstory gives you new insight into the bigger storyline.

Especially with the Sylvari ….

Motoko.2361:

Heres how i deal with the story.

Delete. Purge. Ignore. Ultra Delete.

the story is pointless, useless, etc, etc.

Here is every story you will ever see :

Party A, B, C, D…..ad infinitum is in conflict with Party 00, 02, 03, …..and so on.

They fight, talk, drama, rinse and repeat.

there you go. Every story every made. blah blah blah.

Your welcome.

1. You should quit story-driven games altogether, if they don’t make you feel anything and only turn you into a cynic.

2. I can see that you are not much into stories or reading in general by common grammar and spelling mistakes you made there.

Also, you have to understand that sometimes there’s no need to explain the problem at hand. In real world we’re born with many problems happening outside and inside our own country, but not all of us wish to embrace them. Our character wants to solve the world problems, that’s the basic premise for any MMO. It means we are at war against the elder dragons, and since we’re climbing our way towards killing them all it’s obvious we wanted to solve this problem.

The short answer to the OP is simply ‘bad writing’.

Things have gotten a touch better the last year or so.

I don’t think it’s bad writing, but rather a different approach to telling the story than what you encounter in other MMOs and what we may have gotten used to.

There is no such thing as the one story you are lead through in this game. Instead, it is more like a jigsaw puzzle, there to be put together by those interested in the whole story and its details, while those who don’t much care for story can easily skip a lot of it.

Personally, I love this jigsaw puzzle of a story, especially since it has lead to a lot of replayability and being able to discover bits and pieces long after I thought I’d been through the whole thing.

There are NPC that turn up in different story instances, and only after a while you realize they are actually not just flavor to the instance at hand, but rather characters that turn up again and again throughout the story. The first time I realized this was when I met Tegwen and Carys, the sylvari that founded the Pale Reavers. My sylvari guard was looking for them in the Caledon Forest (as part of the lvl 10 or 20 racial storyline), and I was vaguely confused because somehow in the back of my head I felt like I was supposed to find her in Bloodtide Coast, which of course doesn’t make sense for a beginner-level story.

A bit later I played my sylvari ele, and I realized it was her who was supposed to find the very same Tegwen in Bloodtide Coast, as part of the level 60 priory questline to recruit her for the pact’s purpose. That’s when I realized it was the very same character and that there was more to her story than I had formerly seen.

Incidentally, the very next day I was on my asura warrior and happened to glance at his current story, and guess what I found? He was supposed to meet Tegwen, Carys and Trahearne together with the Orrian artefact my guard had just recovered in the racial sylvari story, this time as part of the lvl 70 story in the Straits of Devastation.

This was the starting point for me for really getting into the story. I encountered characters like Kekt, Ellie, Shashoo, and many more, that had their own little story scattered throughout the story instances. I was actually sad when some of those stories came to their final end, like Tegwen’s during the lvl 80 assault on Orr, and I actually felt good seeing some of the familiar faces in later story steps, sometimes from the lvl 10 to the lvl 80 stories (like Shrieksy, Kozzak’s pet raptor ), and sometimes even into the HoT and living world stories.

This game’s story isn’t a book you just read from start to finish, nor a movie you sit down and watch in one go. It’s there for you all over the world to explore, meet characters, see places, and bit by bit it will all fall together. The different story choices as well as places, characters, and events all over the open world give you bits and pieces of it. Even dungeons, fractals, and raids hold pieces of this giant jigsaw, and you are welcome (although never forced) to explore and find them if you are curious about the backstory. There are even pieces in the world related to the novels, like the mariner plaques all over LA or Killeen’s grave in the Fields of Ruins. None of this is required to play the game and have fun, but if you enjoy this kind of thing there’s hours upon hours of exploration and discovery here for you.