Guild Wars 2

How important is the Guild Wars story to you?

I have to be honest, for me I don’t care.

I go back to GW1. I tried to get into the story, but it got too complicated for me. Who’s who and why this or that is happening. Just too many things to keep track of, so I lost interest.

I just played the game and ignored all the dialogue. So now I have no idea WTH is goin on…..lol

But that’s fine, I still enjoy the game. I will say, if I fully understood the entire story, I’m sure that would add to the game.

Anyhow, I’m curious…..are there others like me where the story is not important at all, or is it a must to understand the story?

I love the story. And, I like how the storyline missions interact with locations and events in the main world.

I’m working my way through all of the storyline missions, and I’m amazed at how they work together. But, if one doesn’t play several of them, one wouldn’t see it.

For instance, for Charr you have Blood, Iron, and Ash Legions you can choose. You still get Rytlock for a friend, but he speaks differently to you if you’re not Blood like him.

And, when you first choose an order, it’s not hard at all to imagine yourself as three characters, if you’ve seen all three missions.

So, I’m big into story. (I just wish there was an achievement for going through the missions, so I wouldn’t have to track it in a spreadsheet.)

I’ll be very honest, I have no idea what any of the story or lore is really. I just play for action and fun. Here is what I know of the story. I started playing, skipped through all the story cut scenes I could during the personal story, killed a bunch of mobs, moved on killed more mobs until I guess I killed some dragon. Moving on LS2 I completely forget what I did aside from finishing it. To HoT same thing but killed another dragon I think, and LS3 I think I saved a baby dragon or something like that at one point. I just skip past what I can and ignore the dialog I can’t skip while I check my email or read the forums until I can move on to more action. That’s just me though. Maybe I’ve not done my self a favor by not following any of it.

That said, there are a lot of people that seem to love the story and lore so I’m glad it is there for them.

Tom.6478:

How important is the Guild Wars story to you?

Very important. However, I’ve been following the story since GW1 open beta in 2005.

Without the story I wouldn’t be playing that simple form Guild Wars 1 and on ward, which is why I’m more than just a ‘little’ miffed at them locking story behind raids.

I’m very much into the story and lore, for GW1/GW2 and other games. For me, a story line that I can get into is a major factor in whether or not I enjoy a game. However, not everyone feels that way, and GW2 is very easy to play without ever really paying attention to the story.

Took me 4 years to finish the personal story for the first time. I’m only about half way through LW S2. I missed pretty well all of LW S1, despite owning the game the whole time. I’m sure I’ll get around to LW S3 eventually. You tell me, how important is the story to me.

(It’s OK, but not particularly compelling to this here adult. The voice over zoom in thing really made it nice to watch though, so I am sad that feature isn’t used much anymore)

Normally story is very important to me. Its why I play RPGs (computer and PnP). The writing for GW2 has frequently put me off to the point that I am not as in touch with the story here as I normally prefer. The action is not bad though. Kind of like a popcorn movie with fun fight choreography. Fun to watch, but what was the plot again?

aerial.7021:

Without the story I wouldn’t be playing that simple form Guild Wars 1 and on ward, which is why I’m more than just a ‘little’ miffed at them locking story behind raids.

i will sneakily add here that they are not locking anything

Tbh, GW2 is the first MMO in which I actually pay attention to the story, lol. I like it!

I can’t get into a story if I don’t like the characters. Taimi is the only character in Dragonwatch that I actually like. There are some parts of the story that are interesting in spite of the whole Dragonwatch thing.

TBF, I love this game because it has such a complex and serious storyline, but can still manage to put in some realistic comedy relief

World of Warcraft is like 15% serious and 85% comedy relief, so I got bored of that real quick.

Extremely important. If I don’t care about the lore, story, and characters, I ultimately can’t care about the game itself, no matter how fun the gameplay is.

I find I am enjoying playing living world as it happens more than after-the-fact. LS2 was pretty terrible for me. I just wanted to get it over with. And I’m not sure if it’s just that LS3 is better or that it’s current and I’m doing it as each episode is released rather than going through the entire thing back-to-back.

I also enjoyed the personal storyline more. Perhaps because it releases every 10 levels so I’m not trying to do it all at once? I’m honestly not sure. I can’t say any particular story is better or worse than the others. I do have my preferences for characters, though (Taimi is the best, honorable mention to Tybalt, and a nut-punch to Broham in LS3!). And some boss battles are better than others. For instance, Zhaitan was pretty lame and Mordremoth was just boring while LS3 boss battles keep me on my toes more.

Doing the story is always my favorite part in updates, so I guess that means that story is very important to me.

GW2 has a story?

No, I really do not care. For a story, I read a good book. During the battle I can not follow the plot or the blah blah of Queen xyz. In addition, I do not think of the “life” of Braham or Canach or various NPCs.

The only thing I really like is the Asuran culture with its smart quotes here and there. Fighting with the power of your brain is a beautiful concept. Therefore, playing big silly cats has never impressed me.

Guild Wars

The story is incredibly important. It’s the driving force behind playing. Not only following the main story, but making stories for each of my characters.

i havent read anything in game regarding story of gw2, even cinematics i just clicked go to the end every single time, i log in to play not to read a book

During my first playthrough, I was all “ok, go there, kill that, go there, recieve that…” and truly didn’t care for the story. Seems like a bad mistake to start with the human story now, on my second complete core playthrough, I paid much more attention to the story and discovered what others said before, that the stories of the different orders and races and of course personal choices intertwine, which I think to be a fine feature. It often has amazed me. But on the other had, I am not sure just how important the story is to me. I guess if GW2 did not have a story, I would still play it

Compared to GW1, I much prefer the diversity of the stories that incentivizes numerous playthroughs. By the time I got my 3rd Proph char, I couldn’t stand to do the Frost Gate mission anymore…

Story is pretty important to me. If my character isn’t motivated, then I don’t want to do stuff. Parts of the story, writing-wise, are not as good as others, but over all I really enjoy the story.

I’m afraid I’m also not big on story. I’m half-interested and I do watch the cut scenes the first time through but I think I’m a bit long in the tooth to get too involved in yet another fantasy storyline.

Tatwi.3562:

Took me 4 years to finish the personal story for the first time. I’m only about half way through LW S2. I missed pretty well all of LW S1, despite owning the game the whole time. I’m sure I’ll get around to LW S3 eventually. You tell me, how important is the story to me.

(It’s OK, but not particularly compelling to this here adult. The voice over zoom in thing really made it nice to watch though, so I am sad that feature isn’t used much anymore)

Boy do I have a video for you then.
I’ve made video called “Guild Wars 2 – The Complete Season 1 Movie” and it’s 3hours and 20min. It has ALL the cutscenes, dailogues and Lore Narration from the start-to-finish of the storyline. I recommend you check it out before you continue playing S2 because S2 Continues from S1. =) enjoy!

The story itself does not really grab me, however I do like to do the story events as scripted content as opposed to the roaming and grinding I do usually.

One reason the story does not grab me is because I do not like myself. That is, how my Human character behaves, reacts and talks. He is way to understanding, too friendly, a real goodie two shoes, almost a pushover. He constantly takes the high road, forgives everyone, wants to take no credit, you name it, it sickens me.

I actually do like his looks, and also his voice itself, only if he weren’t such a boy scout.

Unfortunately I do not like to play a Charr either, nor any other race: I find all of them to be very stereotypical, very flat in how they react to the events and other NPC’s.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Boy do I have a video for you then.
I’ve made video called “Guild Wars 2 – The Complete Season 1 Movie” and it’s 3hours and 20min. It has ALL the cutscenes, dailogues and Lore Narration from the start-to-finish of the storyline. I recommend you check it out before you continue playing S2 because S2 Continues from S1. =) enjoy!

THANK you!!! I’ve only watched the first 20 minutes, but it’s very good.

Daddicus.6128:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Boy do I have a video for you then.
I’ve made video called “Guild Wars 2 – The Complete Season 1 Movie” and it’s 3hours and 20min. It has ALL the cutscenes, dailogues and Lore Narration from the start-to-finish of the storyline. I recommend you check it out before you continue playing S2 because S2 Continues from S1. =) enjoy!

THANK you!!! I’ve only watched the first 20 minutes, but it’s very good.

It only gets better! =)

DreamyAbaddon should become a Honorary ANet Member for this all this dedication… is it actually sticky’d yet?

I guess for me it’s important but that importance is something of a double-edged sword. It keeps me engaged but when certain things are left hanging and unresolved for a long time (Zojja’s condition [matters a lot to me since she’s my favorite NPC], Pale Tree’s condition, Nightmare Court’s status), it does affect my enjoyment of the game to the point I’ve taken breaks from GW2 because of those still-unresolved points.

There’s a reason why I have what I have as a signature. <_<

Tom.6478:

How important is the Guild Wars story to you?

I would say, a lot, but i have been away for a while and missed Scarlet’s war and the new HoT lore. But i get to rediscover it now and its really cool.

My recent background in MMOs is from Warcraft and i loved the old lore, but despise the new.

I feel like the lore is better presented to you as a new player or an alternative character from level 1, i found my self very interested when leveling my alt Elementalist and soaking it in. Watching all the clips, cinematic and reading lore, running around the different quarters of the major cities to get a feel of the atmosphere and lore in the area.

Tho i know the general lines of the story line for each faction i still think its
very, very cool to rediscover a game like this in my opinion.
So many things present them self when you pay attention to the little things.

Alternate character:
As soon as I was finished with my tutorial questing, I was left to my own devices, and just quest in the different zones without a coherent lore story. As there is in Warcraft for each zone. – sorry i compare these 2 but, i hope you understand.

So the way GW2 works is if you are interested in their lore, you can and will enjoy it a lot.

well finished story on 17 of 22 lvl80’s finished lw s1 , finished lw s2 on 12 characters(though some partially), finishing lw s3 on 2-4 characters…

Being the one that started this thread, I wanted the add a couple of things.

First, when I said the story was not important to me, I didn’t mean I did not like playing the personal story or the living story. I may not pay attension to the story itself, but I enjoy doing the story.

It gives me something to do besides just meta events, farming, or whatever. I especially like scavenger hunt type things. As well as getting achievements points and various rewards.

There is so many things to do even when you don’t care about the story.

The second thing I would like to say…..is to give a big shout out to the DreamyAbaddon video.

I have not watched the whole thing, but even for me it was interesting.

As others have said, If there was ever a thing that needs to be a sticky its that video. For people like me or just someone who wants to review what has happened.

Unimportant.

I wish we could skip all dialogues in the story so it would go faster. The last instance of episode 4 took me like 40 minutes…and I was late for my raid group…

I also hate that we can’t pause it, if we leave we have to start all over. -_-

I’ve given up on any story in this game. Since HoT it’s been an absolute trainwreck of amateur writing. Not really sure what happened. The Pre-HoT stories weren’t brilliant, but they weren’t terrible either. There was some really good and punchy writing in there. Now it’s all a mess from top to bottom. Poorly structured plots, one-dimensional characters, cliche after cliche, and an even greater dependency on lame “mysteries” to try to keep people interested.

If it wasn’t for the new maps, I don’t think LS3 would be well received at all.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

I’ve made video called “Guild Wars 2 – The Complete Season 1 Movie” and it’s 3hours and 20min. It has ALL the cutscenes, dailogues and Lore Narration from the start-to-finish of the storyline. I recommend you check it out before you continue playing S2 because S2 Continues from S1. =) enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joLmVI5URak

Thank you! I’ll be showing that to my fiance once he finishes the personal story

And for me, the Story is the only reason to play any game, and I’ve played this story since GW1 first appeared.

Daddicus.6128:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Boy do I have a video for you then.
I’ve made video called “Guild Wars 2 – The Complete Season 1 Movie” and it’s 3hours and 20min. It has ALL the cutscenes, dailogues and Lore Narration from the start-to-finish of the storyline. I recommend you check it out before you continue playing S2 because S2 Continues from S1. =) enjoy!

THANK you!!! I’ve only watched the first 20 minutes, but it’s very good.

Oh, Dreamy, that is excellent! It really fills in some of the blanks in my memory (and, at my age, there’s quite a few of them).

Others: Highly recommended. HIGHLY.

Anyhow, back to the subject at hand: it seems players are scattered all over the proverbial map.