Guild Wars 2

I was always unable to get fully invested in the living story because it was a bit too “unserious” for me. Scarlet (corrected!), while she had her charms was a just a little too cute and chit chatty. How about a serious threat? Zhaitan could be that but he’s more like a villain in absentia.

How about a Dark Lord with a scary name or title like the “Mordsith” (borrowing from SWOT, sorry!). We need to see him turn Tyria dark, impale people and leave them for all to see, kill a couple of people we love (Scarlet make a joke of Farrow, by cooking him and leaving him in his undies).

In short, make him evil. Make him scary. Give me a reason to fear the night. Remember you song “Fear not this night”? Make it come alive. Live to the tune of that. Give us despair, bleakness, oppress our hearts. Make the demonic come alive.

Corrupt Tyria, fill it with the sounds of shrieking wraiths in pain (not lumenescent will—o-the-wisps mind you).

Give us more single instance living story dungeons to make us afraid and isolate us from our friends. We want to feel heroic at the end of the day, that’s why we role play. It’s hard to feel heroic against comedic villains.

Do that, and I will get more involved in the living story.

God, so many people spell scarlet wrong. its freaking annoying SCARLET! not scarlett…

If you had watched the cutscene then you should know what to expect already. What makes a story dark isn’t really the villains but rather the good guys/girls. If you do away with the traditional notion of good and evil then you can create something truly dark. Let’s say your protagonists aren’t necessarily good and they are flawed like real people are. They try to do the right thing but things aren’t always black and white. Maybe they’re forced to sacrifice someone to save others and that someone is close to them and they end up letting everyone else die instead.

More to this point, the elder dragons aren’t really your traditional villains either. They are similar to the Old Ones from the Cthulu mythos in that they are neither good nor evil. It is simply their nature to destroy and consume. I believe they have been described as forces of nature. You try to kill them not because they’re bad but because they are threatening your way of life.

zeromius.1604:

If you had watched the cutscene then you should know what to expect already. What makes a story dark isn’t really the villains but rather the good guys/girls. If you do away with the traditional notion of good and evil then you can create something truly dark. Let’s say your protagonists aren’t necessarily good and they are flawed like real people are. They try to do the right thing but things aren’t always black and white. Maybe they’re forced to sacrifice someone to save others and that someone is close to them and they end up letting everyone else die instead.

More to this point, the elder dragons aren’t really your traditional villains either. They are similar to the Old Ones from the Cthulu mythos in that they are neither good nor evil. It is simply their nature to destroy and consume. I believe they have been described as forces of nature. You try to kill them not because they’re bad but because they are threatening your way of life.

I’m kind of trying to capture the atmosphere of GW1 with its Mursaat, the nightmarish scenery of Elona, the Domain of Anguish and such. Maybe a lot of the suspense and atmosphere had to do with the fact that you were alone without any friends to help you (though that was an option if you wanted).

Perhaps the sense of isolation is key. Perhaps single player dungeons can re capture that feeling…

I second your opinion, but personal preferences aside, it would be an unwise move for anet. Bleak settings, while having become more popular since the 70s, still only have a niche audience. Plus there are lot of wonky children protection rules in various relevant markets.

As long as the darkness is from a story perspective and not a literal one I fully agree… I hate places I can’t see well…

I seem to recall people complaining about how the Orr chapters of the personal story was bad because they were darkish.
So might be hard for ArenaNet to know who they should listen to.

I would love it to be a little darker – a sense of real threat, loss or difficult decisions needing to be made would go a long way with me.

I didn’t really feel invested in the last LS arc, except for which achievements I could reasonably hope to get, and that was a shame. I got more invested towards the end, because I felt the content got better, but I never really cared much about the story itself. The only part where I truly felt an emotional impact was at the shrine that appeared in LA after the invasion, and there was a little child’s note saying “I can’t find my Mummy and Daddy.” That really resonated with me. And, while I hope I don’t come across the wrong way when I say this – I would like to see more of that kind of stuff in the LS.

But, my personal wishes aside, just a better story would be fine, even if it was more light-hearted. I just need something I care about – I would like to log in because I’m keen to see where the story will go, what will happen. Not just to see what the next boss encounter will be like and whether or not I want the meta achievement. I’d like not to care about the achievements at all other than a form of side entertainment.

PEGI Rating +12

/15 char

zeromius.1604:

If you had watched the cutscene then you should know what to expect already. What makes a story dark isn’t really the villains but rather the good guys/girls. If you do away with the traditional notion of good and evil then you can create something truly dark. Let’s say your protagonists aren’t necessarily good and they are flawed like real people are. They try to do the right thing but things aren’t always black and white. Maybe they’re forced to sacrifice someone to save others and that someone is close to them and they end up letting everyone else die instead.

More to this point, the elder dragons aren’t really your traditional villains either. They are similar to the Old Ones from the Cthulu mythos in that they are neither good nor evil. It is simply their nature to destroy and consume. I believe they have been described as forces of nature. You try to kill them not because they’re bad but because they are threatening your way of life.

Agreed. Both effect it and the nature of the story but the good guys have a huge part in it as well. A good example would be like marvel movies compared to the recent dc movies where marvel generally goes with the good guys having a lot of that corny comedy attached to it while dc tends to go more serious and deeper into the roots of the story on the heroes, or the older spidermans compared to the newer ones. I too would love for a more serious deeper dark story when it comes to the heroes of tyria.

I’m not looking for bunnies and sunshine, but I am sick of the “dark” cliche. Everything fictional is being “dark” these days — BORING.

Drama, yes. Tension, yes. Struggle, yes.

“Dark” — yawn.

Have you listened to the data-mined conversation between Destiny’s Edge 2.0 that was SUPPOSED to be for the Aftermath bar scene?! Marjory died! And the dialogue was all recorded and was great! Instead we got a super cheesy ending with no real impact in my opinion. How crazy would it have been if Marjory died? I for one would actually care more about these characters if I saw that they weren’t immortal NPCs that we never have to care about or worry about.

Sytherek.7689:

I’m not looking for bunnies and sunshine, but I am sick of the “dark” cliche. Everything fictional is being “dark” these days — BORING.

Drama, yes. Tension, yes. Struggle, yes.

“Dark” — yawn.

I’m curious then, what do you define as “dark”? Drama, Tension, Struggle can easily fall into that category I would think. Personally I hate the term “dark”, I prefer calling it realsitic or something.

The end of the living story was dark and what’s more, tragic. There was no feeling of a substantially happy ending. Thousands of civilians died, countless left with permanent injuries and health issues from the miasma, who knows how many homeless and business-less.
And now the world has another dragon to contend with. I mean they always did, but the world would have been a better place for them if they didn’t know. Ignorance is bliss.

I wouldn’t need it to go darker than that, and least of all with such a tacky idea of a ‘dark lord’ kind of character. They’re starting to get back to the Guild Wars Nightfall/Eye of the North era standard of writing, with a bit more soap-opera, and I’d be delighted if they continued exactly as they are.

I’ll just say, once the voice direction for Scarlet changed, I enjoyed her character a whole lot more. Her lines were delivered less manic and more calculating with some actual emotion behind them. She almost sounded more and more frustrated with her personal situation towards the end.

You know, I feel as if the writing improved ten-fold towards the last half of the living story. They must have hired better writers because I’m impressed and satisfied.

Considering in this LS we already got the “whatever you try to do, you will fail and the villain will succeed” message (coupled with “because you and all your allies are idiots”), i’d rather see something more optimistic now.

bhagwad.4281:

I was always unable to get fully invested in the living story because it was a bit too “unserious” for me. Scarlet (corrected!), while she had her charms was a just a little too cute and chit chatty. How about a serious threat? Zhaitan could be that but he’s more like a villain in absentia.

How about a Dark Lord with a scary name or title like the “Mordsith” (borrowing from SWOT, sorry!). We need to see him turn Tyria dark, impale people and leave them for all to see, kill a couple of people we love (Scarlet make a joke of Farrow, by cooking him and leaving him in his undies).

In short, make him evil. Make him scary. Give me a reason to fear the night. Remember you song “Fear not this night”? Make it come alive. Live to the tune of that. Give us despair, bleakness, oppress our hearts. Make the demonic come alive.

Corrupt Tyria, fill it with the sounds of shrieking wraiths in pain (not lumenescent will—o-the-wisps mind you).

Give us more single instance living story dungeons to make us afraid and isolate us from our friends. We want to feel heroic at the end of the day, that’s why we role play. It’s hard to feel heroic against comedic villains.

Do that, and I will get more involved in the living story.

You don’t always need darkness to create a scary villain. They just need to be personally involved in the hero’s life.Villains that are far away aren’t as scary as villains that are close by. Let’s take a look at a some examples from Lord of the Rings:

Sauron (aka The Necromancer)— He’s that big ugly eye that stays on top of his tower for the entire story. His distance keeps him from getting personally involved in the heroes’ lives. (Well, he attacks the heroes via Saruman, but that diminishes Sauron’s potential as a bad guy)

Saruman — The wizard who gives the Fellowship trouble. He’s scary because he constantly tries to harm the heroes. Example: When he finds out that a hobbit has the ring, he orders his minions to capture all hobbits. That puts Merry, Pippin, Frodo, & Sam in alot of danger

Gollum (aka Smeagol) — He befriends and helps the hero, Frodo, in order to get the ring for himself. During the course of the story, there was a chance he could turn on the good guys at any time.

The One Ring — The ring that Frodo must carry all the way to Mt. Doom. This item purposely placed Frodo in danger during the course of LOTR. It’s an object that has a mind of its own, and it often affected Frodo’s mind.

Now back to GW2. How does this apply to the game?

Scarlet’s problem was that she never got into the personal lives of the heroes (esp. the Sylvari PCs). She was just another mad scientist who caused chaos and destruction. She suffered from “Too Evil for you” syndrome. That’s why it was easy to write her off as a non-threat. It’s also the reason that the Captain’s Council didn’t do anything to protect Lion’s Arch.

What GW2 needs is a believable, scary bad guy (or gal —- gotta promote equal opportunity, you know!)

Here’s a great article that talks about writing villians in alot more detail:
http://www.springhole.net/writing/write_better_villains.htm

kta.6502:

You don’t always need darkness to create a scary villain. They just need to be personally involved in the hero’s life.Villains that are far away aren’t as scary as villains that are close by. Let’s take a look at a some examples from Lord of the Rings:

Sauron (aka The Necromancer)— He’s that big ugly eye that stays on top of his tower for the entire story. His distance keeps him from getting personally involved in the heroes’ lives. (Well, he attacks the heroes via Saruman, but that diminishes Sauron’s potential as a bad guy)

Saruman — The wizard who gives the Fellowship trouble. He’s scary because he constantly tries to harm the heroes. Example: When he finds out that a hobbit has the ring, he orders his minions to capture all hobbits. That puts Merry, Pippin, Frodo, & Sam in alot of danger

Gollum (aka Smeagol) — He befriends and helps the hero, Frodo, in order to get the ring for himself. During the course of the story, there was a chance he could turn on the good guys at any time.

The One Ring — The ring that Frodo must carry all the way to Mt. Doom. This item purposely placed Frodo in danger during the course of LOTR. It’s an object that has a mind of its own, and it often affected Frodo’s mind.

Now back to GW2. How does this apply to the game?

Scarlet’s problem was that she never got into the personal lives of the heroes (esp. the Sylvari PCs). She was just another mad scientist who caused chaos and destruction. She suffered from “Too Evil for you” syndrome. That’s why it was easy to write her off as a non-threat. It’s also the reason that the Captain’s Council didn’t do anything to protect Lion’s Arch.

What GW2 needs is a believable, scary bad guy (or gal —- gotta promote equal opportunity, you know!)

Here’s a great article that talks about writing villians in alot more detail:
http://www.springhole.net/writing/write_better_villains.htm

I both agree and disagree with the idea that the antagonist needs to be personal. Notice how I used the term antagonist rather than villain because it is a more general term. The antagonist in a story doesn’t need to be evil nor the protagonist good.

I agree that having a personal antagonist rather than one that is distant creates a greater sense of immediacy. They can seem very threatening at first but then because of their exposure over time to the protagonist they would seem less so. I think your example of Gollum is good because of how ambiguous his character was. He seemed at first to be a crazy and obsessive creature turned into a character trying to redeem himself then surprisingly back into that crazy obsessive creature at the end.

I disagree that a personal antagonist is necessarily scarier than one that is more distant. I think the idea that there is this ever present but unknown threat out there creates a stronger sense of despair. Like in video games of the past, you don’t see the last boss until the very end. In a very difficult game you get this feeling of both anticipation and dread as you get closer and closer to him/her. The belief that the antagonist is distant and far beyond the protagonist is a highly effective means of adding darkness to the story. I think a good example of this would be the Lord of Darkness briefly alluded to in A Song of Ice and Fire.

With people clamoring for more SAB and no one actually complaining about the G rated “Living story” telling on the forums, forget about it.

Tybalt rises as one of Zhaitan’s generals after Zhaitan’s defeat, leading his army into destroying half of Tyria as we know it.