Guild Wars 2

I wish to add my thoughts to the thread and my disagreement with the change and request to return the missing content and correct the timeline of events from the reorder of the final parts. When I heard about the upcoming changes to change the levels of each step so that each subsection of the plot was experienced without 2-3 leveling up interrupts I thought “hey that is a good idea”. As I was accustomed to leveling up to the level of the last step in each to get that experience.

After the patch taking a character through the story I was shocked to run into the out of order plot; and finding the whole section of plot that set the stage for key aspects of the plot involving fort trinity was missing. Going through the personal story now is just confusing with missing plot and out of order plot. Even though I have done it several times over the last two years. The story writing was great and it is a huge deal not having it.

Now about the grouping of the personal story. Once we have gotten to level 80 we begin the final stages of the battle to finish zhaitan. So at that point there is no concern for the story being interrupted by having to stop and level. And there is a logical spot to end a run of steps for players at further into orr. Which if it was so desired the journal could be segmented again with further into orr beginning a ninth section for organization (and would require restoration of the correct order of the plot for this as well).

With those things said it leaves me with no desire to continue to play the personal story with any more characters and even makes me reluctant to want to join others (even if they need help) in playing it. As this is the straw that broke the camels back, for me, in regard to the personal story. I will leave the other factors out, as it is another topic and another thread to which I have already voiced them in.

I’ll conclude by saying I hope that arenanet is taking our concerns seriously and will be addressing them by restoring the missing steps and plot order. It concerns me when developers, writers, artists, etc put hard work into content to see it disappear post final product. I can understand changing content to make the world feel alive. I’m sure even those who worked on it have a vision to bring the devastated areas to a whole new (better/improved) life. But completely removing content… !?! I can’t even begin to think what the people who worked on it think about that.

If anyone is still interested, I just finished all of chapter 7 of the personal story. I’m no expert on how this used to be since I only did it once before and am hazy on the details back then. But this is how the chapters fall now for a character created after the patch:

1) Forging the Pact.
2) The Battle of Fort Trinity.
3) Against the corruption (you are airlifted to Orr from Fort Trinity, so no requirement to explore your way there on your own).
4) Cathedral of Silence (my choice, there was another option open involving a Norn mapmaker or something. Again, you are airlifted to Orr from Fort Trinity).
5) The Source of Orr (Airlifted again. This section of the chapter concludes when you are told to regroup with Trahearne at Fort Trinity. Here you have to talk to Sayeh al’Rayihd, who greets you with “We meet again”, though you haven’t met her before, so something is clearly still off).

End of chapter 7. Hopes this helps, if there are any questions I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.

This is even worse than when I posted before. I should have waited to post until I did the steps that are out of order. They even streamlined those by putting the instance entrance in fort trinity air ship. Completely negating the plot element of having to fight zhaintans forces to reach the area the story steps take place in. This is more a big deal for the source of orr step since at the end of the previous step the dialog is “it won’t be easy to get there we will have to fight through zhaitans forces to get there.” Which is now a joke since we skip right past them all and enter the instance from the fort. Odd sounds of disgust and frustration that are hard to convey in text are all I can think of to voice at this point!?!

Take a chapter from the end and shove it in the middle. Take another and drop it on the floor. Spot check for inconsistencies… Nah!

The changes are so sloppy, so unconcerned with the plot — It’s embarrassing. Maybe that’s why they don’t want to talk about it?

Messenger.7450:

Danikat.8537:

Although I’m avoiding doing the story on my existing characters until it’s fixed I decided I wanted to see the changes for myself so I’ve been levelling up a new one.

She’s level 50 now so not far off the edited parts. It will be interesting to see if it has been reverted.

So how’s it going?

Anyone else recently gone through the post-Sept. 30 patch PS?

Is the Greatest Fear chapter back? Truly back?

How’s the order of the episodes of the Orrian chapters?

I’ve got my Necro ignoring Gixx’s summons (Claw Island chapter) in hopes he doesn’t run into the screwed up PS. I really want him to meet Tonn. :-(

Progress slowed down a bit when I ran out of Tomes of Knowledge but the character is level 78.5, I’m thoroughly bored of EOTM but planning to finish levelling up tomorrow and do the level 80 storyline.

Here’s my notes from the level 70 section:

(I created the character on the 28th September. She’s a sylvari who joined the Order of Whispers, chose to help the Hylek and picked ‘letting an innocent die’ as their greatest fear.)

Story chapters are listed in the order you play through them.

Forging The Pact
Everything was normal up to this point.

According to my story journal at the end of this storyline Trahearne asked me to make sure a key element of the Pact’s campaign was ready. I don’t remember this happening.

The Battle of Fort Trinity
The fort already has the Krait Orb and Tonn’s bombs and your character seems familiar with the fort (they say ‘this place was already formidable’) on their first arrival.

At the end of the storyline the story journal says before we carry on with the main campaign I have to finish the mission I started at Trahearne’s request, but he didn’t make a request. This could possibly be referring to helping Trahearne with his Wyld Hunt, but so far that’s been presented as a core part of the main campaign against Zhaitan, not a side mission.

Against the Corruption & Cathedral of Silence
Other than seemingly being able to get a flight to anywhere in Orr, which seems unlikely with all those dragon champions in the skies (and events where Pact airships are attacked) these two were unremarkable as far as plot holes go.

The Source of Orr
By contrast this one is a complete mess.

Elli is taking about not needing time to grieve, and what Zott would want her to do, which is odd because I haven’t seen her since she was commentating at the pit-fighting contest in Trouble at the Roots.

Sayeh al’Rajihd and my character both talk about the Temple of Abaddon, which they haven’t been to yet. They also seem to know each other in spite of never meeting before.

Snarl Backdraft thanks me for helping him with Galina – because my character is a sylvari I’ve never met either of them before. My character talks to both of them about defeating the Mouth of Zhaitan – something which hasn’t happened yet.

I seem to remember a storyline between Cathedral of Silence and this one where we went looking for the artesian well, instead of just knowing where it is and getting air-lifted to that exact point.

My character and King Reza talk about the multiple eyes of Zhaitan and the fact that I’ve freed (aka defeated) them one by one. But before now I’ve only seen 1 Eye and that was in the Pale Tree’s vision during A Light in the Darkness.

After the cleansing ritual all the characters are talking about how the campaign against the dragon is all but over and they can go home, even though to me it seems like we’ve barely started.

In the follow-up instance everyone is talking as if we’ve almost won and the only thing left is the dragon itself, but to be honest that’s not that unusual. We won a major victory, so it makes sense everyone would feel like it’s just a matter of time before we win completely.

The really odd part is going to be when the level 80 chapter starts, apparently the first part is Temple of the Forgotten God, and according to everyone in The Source of Orr has already happened and a lot of the dialogue involves the Greatest Fear storyline. It’s also supposed to be where you first encounter the Eye of Zhaitan and start to learn about what they are.

All of which makes me think that will be the point at which even new players who have no idea how the story used to be will start to question what’s going on and why there are so many inconsistences.

At this moment I’d even appreciate a ‘lol, nope, won’t be fixed’ answer. So many characters blocked out of the personal story.

Danikat.8537:

Messenger.7450:

Danikat.8537:

Although I’m avoiding doing the story on my existing characters until it’s fixed I decided I wanted to see the changes for myself so I’ve been levelling up a new one.

She’s level 50 now so not far off the edited parts. It will be interesting to see if it has been reverted.

So how’s it going?

Anyone else recently gone through the post-Sept. 30 patch PS?

Is the Greatest Fear chapter back? Truly back?

How’s the order of the episodes of the Orrian chapters?

I’ve got my Necro ignoring Gixx’s summons (Claw Island chapter) in hopes he doesn’t run into the screwed up PS. I really want him to meet Tonn. :-(

Danikat.8537’s awesome and very detailed summary

Thank you for updating us and sharing that information with us. It really does sadden me to hear that the plot is like that. I’ve been hearing more people talking about these airlifts lately and as you pointed out, it doesn’t really make sense given that the skies are just as dangerous as the ground with so many Dragon Champions still flying around.

I know they haven’t said whether Greatest Fear is one of the things on their radar to fix for plot holes, and I know they haven’t mentioned any progress on a fix even though some users have seen early evidence of a fix into live builds, but this situation has me a bit bummed out because I’m not allowing myself to play through any more Personal Story until this gets fixed, and even as a very loyal and devout GW2 fan it just gets a little harder for me to log on each day…

Still nothing from them..

I have waited a month to put my opinion on this subject here. I have waited mostly because of the flawed hope that it would have been resolved by now, and partly because of how angry I was when I found out about the change.

I have been playing the Guild Wars franchise since Guild Wars Nightfall came out and fell in love with the lore and story of this world. I remember waiting in anticipation for any scrap of news of when Guild Wars 2 would come out. I remember hoping I would be included in closed beta, enchanted during open beta. Scrapping together enough money to get a Collector’s Edition of the game before launch.

This is insulting. Both to the players who no longer are able to play the game’s personal story in its full form, and to those who worked on the content. I have not touched personal story on any of my characters affected by this, and do not plan on doing so until it is fixed. Which is a shame because I love the personal story, even though I have played it countless times between my characters and helping friends.

I have advised everyone I know to wait to play the story until anet makes it make sense again. I am waiting to play it on the character I made for the NPE. I brought a few people to the game recently, but I do not want their first experience of the “new” PS to be their last because it didn’t make sense.

OK, so I just finished the personal story for my alt with this new patch. I had gotten 4 other characters to Zhaitan pre patch so I was familiar with the correct order. I know this thread is mostly about Apatia, but has since revolved more over the entirety of the changes to the PS.

I for one do not understand why they moved the Source of Orr before the invasion. I guess I can kinda get it that they wanted a “cleansed Orr” before we invade by choosing a Pact invasion plan.

I suppose that this way they can be lazy about it and those new players arriving in Orr can see it after the cleanse and not fully realize that what they are seeing is what Orr always looked like before cleanse. That’s what most of were used to before patch. I just dunno, because really no other reason I can think of makes sense.

I know they’ve said they will plug these plot holes, but when? Do we really want to keep fixing what’s there and not move on to other things. If they are still unhappy with the personal story after two years, then let it go instead of investing resources and time in something that is already established.

I dunno, it seems to me that if for some reason they tried to change story chapter placements to make things easier for new players, these plot holes now make things worse. Any self-respecting new player following the story has to be WTF by the end because of all these vague references that were somewhat clearer before. If they do get around fixing it, I can’t imagine it will be this year. So that seems to me like an effort wasted that those new players in this time frame are left with such confusion. Very, very, very poorly done IMO.

It would be very interesting to poll these new players and find out from them at the end of their personal story how confusing things were for them. If the story does cause them a lot of confusion then maybe Anet will take greater care next time before they try to fix something that’s not really broken.

My confusion is now complete. I have reached level 80 and thereby advanced to the “Temple of the Forgotten God”. Before I can go there though, I must meet with Trahearne at Fort Trinity. The Marshal greets me with a speech about the inconsolable Ceera and her husband Tonn, who gave his life for the Pact. I am told I cannot take this tragedy on my own shoulders – their sacrifice was needed (I am paraphrasing here).
I go “Huh? Who the heck is Tonn or Ceera?”. I have never met these people before, and now it seems I never will….
Moving on – Trahearne beckons me to a distant corner of the fort and bursts out: “It is now safe to show yourself”. Out pop Sayeh al’Rajihd, who I am politely introduced to. She says she is honoured to meet me (or something similar) and that she has heard a lot about me. I am confused, since I met her at the end of chapter 7 (I was confused then too since she said it was good to see me again, while I hadn’t met her at that point).
Sayeh and I go to the Temple of the Forgotten God, where we meet a Mouth and Eye of Zhaitan. I am astonished again at the idea of Zaitan having eyes and mouths, even though I killed one of those eyes in chapter 7.

I haven’t gone any further – at this point the plot holes are so glaring that I just don’t know how anyone can overlook them.

Cassandra Nea.2507:

My confusion is now complete. I have reached level 80 and thereby advanced to the “Temple of the Forgotten God”. Before I can go there though, I must meet with Trahearne at Fort Trinity. The Marshal greets me with a speech about the inconsolable Ceera and her husband Tonn, who gave his life for the Pact. I am told I cannot take this tragedy on my own shoulders – their sacrifice was needed (I am paraphrasing here).
I go “Huh? Who the heck is Tonn or Ceera?”. I have never met these people before, and now it seems I never will….
Moving on – Trahearne beckons me to a distant corner of the fort and bursts out: “It is now safe to show yourself”. Out pop Sayeh al’Rajihd, who I am politely introduced to. She says she is honoured to meet me (or something similar) and that she has heard a lot about me. I am confused, since I met her at the end of chapter 7 (I was confused then too since she said it was good to see me again, while I hadn’t met her at that point).
Sayeh and I go to the Temple of the Forgotten God, where we meet a Mouth and Eye of Zhaitan. I am astonished again at the idea of Zaitan having eyes and mouths, even though I killed one of those eyes in chapter 7.

I haven’t gone any further – at this point the plot holes are so glaring that I just don’t know how anyone can overlook them.

I have to ask. Are you one of the “new players” that they made these changes for in the first place? If so, I believe they did this to make the game less confusing, or so I think. If you are saying it’s confusing now, then I still have to ask Anet what justification did they use to make these changes?

Why can’t I remember this?

Kythan Myr.4719:

Cassandra Nea.2507:

My confusion is now complete. I have reached level 80 and thereby advanced to the “Temple of the Forgotten God”. Before I can go there though, I must meet with Trahearne at Fort Trinity. The Marshal greets me with a speech about the inconsolable Ceera and her husband Tonn, who gave his life for the Pact. I am told I cannot take this tragedy on my own shoulders – their sacrifice was needed (I am paraphrasing here).
I go “Huh? Who the heck is Tonn or Ceera?”. I have never met these people before, and now it seems I never will….
Moving on – Trahearne beckons me to a distant corner of the fort and bursts out: “It is now safe to show yourself”. Out pop Sayeh al’Rajihd, who I am politely introduced to. She says she is honoured to meet me (or something similar) and that she has heard a lot about me. I am confused, since I met her at the end of chapter 7 (I was confused then too since she said it was good to see me again, while I hadn’t met her at that point).
Sayeh and I go to the Temple of the Forgotten God, where we meet a Mouth and Eye of Zhaitan. I am astonished again at the idea of Zaitan having eyes and mouths, even though I killed one of those eyes in chapter 7.

I haven’t gone any further – at this point the plot holes are so glaring that I just don’t know how anyone can overlook them.

I have to ask. Are you one of the “new players” that they made these changes for in the first place? If so, I believe they did this to make the game less confusing, or so I think. If you are saying it’s confusing now, then I still have to ask Anet what justification did they use to make these changes?

I have never played a game where the developers removed parts they established for the story and said they did this to ‘help’ new players, this is not an excuse for what have been done. The story was fine there was nothing confusing till they did this.

Kythan Myr.4719:

Cassandra Nea.2507:

My confusion is now complete. I have reached level 80 and thereby advanced to the “Temple of the Forgotten God”. Before I can go there though, I must meet with Trahearne at Fort Trinity. The Marshal greets me with a speech about the inconsolable Ceera and her husband Tonn, who gave his life for the Pact. I am told I cannot take this tragedy on my own shoulders – their sacrifice was needed (I am paraphrasing here).
I go “Huh? Who the heck is Tonn or Ceera?”. I have never met these people before, and now it seems I never will….
Moving on – Trahearne beckons me to a distant corner of the fort and bursts out: “It is now safe to show yourself”. Out pop Sayeh al’Rajihd, who I am politely introduced to. She says she is honoured to meet me (or something similar) and that she has heard a lot about me. I am confused, since I met her at the end of chapter 7 (I was confused then too since she said it was good to see me again, while I hadn’t met her at that point).
Sayeh and I go to the Temple of the Forgotten God, where we meet a Mouth and Eye of Zhaitan. I am astonished again at the idea of Zaitan having eyes and mouths, even though I killed one of those eyes in chapter 7.

I haven’t gone any further – at this point the plot holes are so glaring that I just don’t know how anyone can overlook them.

I have to ask. Are you one of the “new players” that they made these changes for in the first place? If so, I believe they did this to make the game less confusing, or so I think. If you are saying it’s confusing now, then I still have to ask Anet what justification did they use to make these changes?

I am a veteran player all the way back from early access, and I had 4 other level 80ies already. The specific character that I used for this latest run through the personal story is a guardian that I created after the september patch with the NPE. Even if I was a brand new player I don’t believe there is any way things would be less confusing with the way the personal story is put together now, with events taking place out of order, various npc’s being thrown in with no explanation and so on (as in the Tonn and Ceera example I mentioned above, and with Sayeh al’Rajihd greeting me in chapter 7 with “we meet again”, only for me to be introduced to her in chapter 8). If I were new, and hadn’t gone into this knowing that there are now some huge inconsistencies in the story, I would be completely befuddled by what was going on.

I really don’t believe the changes to the story were intended to make it less confusing. If so it was a big mistake because there are a lot more plot holes now.

The most glaring I’ve found so far is that during The Source of Orr Elli talks about Zott’s death, then later on he appears in story quests alongside her and neither of them make any comment on his sudden reappearance.

Alternatively there’s my husbands suggestion: The got Quentin Tarantino in to re-do the story.

New story summary part 2:

Temple of the Forgotten God
The entrances to these instances haven’t been moved, so you actually have to go to the location where the story starts. Which seems odd, because no explanation is given for why you can’t keep using the air ships.

Apparently none of the dialogue has been changed. The chapter starts with Trahearne talking about Tonn’s death and how Ceera reacted, including how she blames me, even though I’ve never met either of them. He then introduces me to Sayeh, who I was speaking to during The Source of Orr.

Through the Looking Glass
Fighting a regular Eye of Zhaitan seems somewhat anti-climatic after defeating the Sovereign Eye, and it seems strange that Trahearne wanted to go to all this effort to get one to study when we already know what they are.

What the Eye Beholds
Now that we’ve seemingly stopped using them (for transport anyway) Trahearne decides to introduce the airships and explain how and why they were created.

Surprisingly the characters reaction to another Eye doesn’t seem like a plot hole. Because the focus is mainly on the fact that it may have allowed Zhaitan to see and react to the experiment it’s easy to miss the fact that they’re also surprised by the existence of more than 1 Eye.

Although this is ruined by the story journal, which is entirely focused on our need to learn what the eyes are and what they do for Zhaitan – something we’ve already been told.

Estate of Decay
And now Snarl Backdraft and Galina Edgecrusher are treating me like a stranger and at each other’s throats, they were getting on so well back during The Source of Orr.

This is also the first point where IMO it becomes impossible to miss that the story is out of order – last time I saw them they talked about defeating the Mouth of Zhaitan and now, later on, we’re doing exactly that.

Ossuary of Unquiet Dead & Further into Orr
Nothing notable here, except for a lot of talk about the need to establish forward bases so we can move further into Orr. I’m not sure what happened to our air support but apparently being dropped in wherever we need to be is no longer an option.

Stealing Light
Now things are getting really strange. Elli is back, and Zott, who she said was dead, is here too. How does that work?

Conscript the Dead Ships & Ships of the Line
And now Zott dies. Pretty much confirming, even for people who have never played it before that the story is out of order. The Source of Orr is obviously supposed to happen after these missions.

And just in case anyone was still in doubt at the end of the mission Trahearne starts talking about having a ritual that might be able to clense Orr, if we can find the right spot and get Caladbolg there.

And as a final touch Trahearne specifically tells you to meet him at the Azebe Qabar royal crypt (the location for Against the Corruption) but then you move on to Victory or Death in Arah.

Victory or Death
I didn’t bother doing this because I assume it’s also unchanged, but it doesn’t really matter too much because it’s still at the end so any references to past events will be appropriate at this point.

Overall Impressions
Even if someone had never played the story before the only way I could see them missing the fact that it’s been changed is if they didn’t read/listen to any of the dialogue.

As a veteran player the thing that bothers me most is actually how anti-climatic the end felt. The big celebration, the moment when everyone felt like we really could defeat the dragons, came early on when we made our first big step. When we finally get to Arah it’s not celebrated at all, it’s just another mission. Combined with the anti-climatic fight against Zhaitan this ends the story with a sense of “Oh, ok we’re done” rather than any real sense of victory or hope.

Suggested Solutions (In order of preference)

• 1) Put the story back into the original order. Yes this will make the last 2 chapters significantly longer than any of the others but I don’t see that as a problem.
• 2) Change all of the dialogue and text to plug the plot holes, ensuring that events and people aren’t mentioned until they actually occur and (preferably) add some mention of the fact that we’re finally going after Zhaitan to the end of Ships of the Line. This would be a lot of work for Anet though, and it would involve getting all the voice actors back.
• 3) Just pull out any dialogue referencing previous events. The story would be very empty, but at least it would be consistent.

Danikat.8537:

New story summary part 2:

Snip.

Awesome summary Danikat, and good suggestions for fixing it. If Anet doesn’t respond to this soon people will be forced to conclude that their attitude to the personal story is something along the lines of “lol kittens happen”.

Danikat.8537:

I really don’t believe the changes to the story were intended to make it less confusing. If so it was a big mistake because there are a lot more plot holes now.

I’ve been wondering why they’ve changed the order, I really thought it was to make things less “confusing”. Has their been any official word why they did this then?

Danikat.8537:

New story summary part 2:

another great summary by Danikat.8537

Suggested Solutions (In order of preference)

• 1) Put the story back into the original order. Yes this will make the last 2 chapters significantly longer than any of the others but I don’t see that as a problem.
• 2) Change all of the dialogue and text to plug the plot holes, ensuring that events and people aren’t mentioned until they actually occur and (preferably) add some mention of the fact that we’re finally going after Zhaitan to the end of Ships of the Line. This would be a lot of work for Anet though, and it would involve getting all the voice actors back.
• 3) Just pull out any dialogue referencing previous events. The story would be very empty, but at least it would be consistent.

Thanks again for doing these summaries. It’s always much better for intelligent conversation to be fueled by actual information, and I just want to say that even though the state of the Personal Story is so sad these days that I and many others can’t bring ourselves to play it even though we would like to, I at least have a lot of faith in and a real sense of camaraderie with the community, especially those who have posted their stories, feelings, thoughts and ideas in this thread.

I sincerely hope that Danikat.8537’s Suggested Solution #1 is the one they ultimately go with. I just want to echo what others have said in this thread: that it would be fine to have several Level 80+ chapters and that it would even showcase that this game is about the wonderful art direction and story more than it is about “Hit level 80 then stop because you’re done.” Endgame really is everywhere in the game, and systems like downscaling so you can play with your newbie friends exist to highlight and showcase that cooperative nature of this game. Many of us enjoyed Personal Story as a part of that game, and are very upset about the way things are after this last Feature Patch.

I just want to thank everyone again for being a part of this thread. Even though I’m really confused as to why all of this happened to the Personal Story, it stings a little less to know that I am not alone and that I’m not the only one who thinks it’s confusing now.

I was surprised at finishing the ‘Blast From The Past’ mission and suddenly. “Victory Or Death: Kill Zhaitan”.

No explanation, no exposition, nothing. Just “Kill Zhaitan” like it isn’t the culmination of what would be in realistic terms a several month mission just to get to the critter.

But Anet doesn’t care, or they’d have sorted the problems by now. SO many problems, going on for SO long, and NO fixes. Anet is putting no care or thought into their own game anymore.

I am at the stage where I am actually angry at myself for continuing to support GW2.

Oh, just as a note, it appears they have nerfed Victory or Death even more. I solo’d the Ooze tower and pretty much solo’d the Orrian Weapon tower, all the mobs on the ship decks during the Dragon Champion and Zhaitan phases melted like butter. I mean, it was like being in a level 10 zone with level 80 exotic gear.

I’ve had someone tell me that My Greatest Fear has been reintroduced into the game. Can anyone confirm this?

Bob F It.5701:

I’ve had someone tell me that My Greatest Fear has been reintroduced into the game. Can anyone confirm this?

I think there’s a bit of confusion because there’s 3 different possibilities.

1) Your character had finished the story
Originally the September 9th patch changed the story journal to show the new format. On the 16th this was reverted so characters who had already finished the story had the Greatest Fear arc included in their journals.

2) Your character had started the level 70 arc before the 9th September
You will get to play through the original format, including the Greatest Fear arc. I wasn’t able to confirm this myself but I believe all the other chapters will be in the original order too.

3) Your character had not reached the level 70 arc before 9th September
This applies to both new characters and existing ones below level 70. These characters have to play through the new format, where the Greatest Fear storyline has been removed.

I’m 100% sure that 1 and 3 are correct. I’m not willing to risk taking one of my permanent characters who were below level 70 through the story to check 2 but that’s what’s been reported by other people in this and other threads.

They removed a whole storyline? I’m getting closer and closer to uninstalling this game.

Are we ever going to get a meaningful, official response to this? While – as I stated – I am not a lore fiend, I find it deeply disturbing that ArenaNet seems to have so little regard for their own creation that they chop it into illogical pieces the way it has been done here. It makes me concerned for the future direction of the game, and I would really appreciate a response.

I’m glad I’ve already done it because right now story seems to be in quite a mish-mash.

Could you define ‘started’ in relation to the level 70 story? If I remember correctly, my characters just told the Pale Tree their greatest fears.

When the patch hit I had a character under level 70, but in the middle of Greatest Fear. He played out Greatest Fear and, after that, was in the new mission order.

Characters I had above 70 and beyond Greatest Fear seem to be on the old mission order.

Confusing! Come on ANet, communication means talking about difficult issues too…

I agree that the story should be reverted to how it was. Split off the final assault on Zhaitan into a new Chapter 9, if you must.

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

When the patch hit I had a character under level 70, but in the middle of Greatest Fear. He played out Greatest Fear and, after that, was in the new mission order.

Characters I had above 70 and beyond Greatest Fear seem to be on the old mission order.

Confusing! Come on ANet, communication means talking about difficult issues too…

That’s a shame. I truly hope ANet fixes this problem soon.

(Inb4 this thread sinks into forum oblivion)

We are still waiting for answers. I need a character slot right now but just letting you guys know I’m refusing to buy gems currently because of this. Not because the PS is messed up, no. It’s because of the fact that we, those players who care about story in our favourite RPG, are still being kittened in the face in place of a comment, any kind of comment from the devs on this issue.

I do not think this is fair on any level.

I finally got my last class to level 80. I l would love to go save Zojja from the fun house but as someone who like to do all of the story over a few days (it feels more real) this isn’t going to happen until anet fixes this. I know Zojja is strong, she will survive until anet comes to their senses…. I hope.

I refuse to have my story journal look like my ele has short term memory loss and cannot keep the details straight.

I’m really hoping the delay is mainly/entirely because their policy seems to be to combine updates that aren’t urgent bug fixes. (And by urgent I mean things like closing exploits and fixing crashes.)

Which means they’re waiting for either another planned update or enough other fixes to justify releasing a patch.

They know it’s an issue, have said they’d look into it and numerous players have suggested relatively simply fixes. None of them are instant or effortless but I can’t see any of them taking this long to put in place.

Of course if it’s not changed in the next couple of updates that theory falls apart, but that’s my hope for now.

Well, congratulations to whatever morons green-lighted and enacted this change to the Personal Story. I now have no desire to play through it again.

Granted, I didn’t care to play through it again for a while after having done so several times already by this point. But I would at least consider it every once in a while and even run a few missions on some of my alts. Now, I’m not even going to do that. Until you fix this problem, either by putting the missions back (and in proper order, too), or fix the new storyline to work with the changes you made, I’m not going to bother with it anymore. At best, I might consider playing up to the order arcs and stopping right after helping a minor race, since that wasn’t screwed up by this change.

But this? Seriously, who among you thought this was a good plan?

“I know, let’s remove one of the few really good parts of the Personal Story post Claw Island and throw the Orr arc almost completely out of order! That’ll make things better for the newbies!”

I can’t believe the money I spent on Gem Cards to support this game went towards garbage changes like this, which do nothing to improve the game, but the exact opposite.

So, until you get your act together and fix this mess, or if Season 2 is really good when you decide to eventually continue it…I think I’m taking a break from supporting the game. I’m still playing, since for all the flaws, I still like this game, and I don’t really feel like trying to find another MMO at this point.

But I’m not spending money on gems unless there’s something I really really want, because these kinds of changes are just unacceptable. No one with half a brain should consider these changes to the Personal story ( along with many of the leveling changes and gating introduced in the feature pack) to be good or beneficial.

And yet you, the people behind the making of this game, somehow deemed it so.

Just why?

Messenger.7450:

Danikat.8537:

Although I’m avoiding doing the story on my existing characters until it’s fixed I decided I wanted to see the changes for myself so I’ve been levelling up a new one.

She’s level 50 now so not far off the edited parts. It will be interesting to see if it has been reverted.

So how’s it going?

Anyone else recently gone through the post-Sept. 30 patch PS?

Is the Greatest Fear chapter back? Truly back?

How’s the order of the episodes of the Orrian chapters?

I’ve got my Necro ignoring Gixx’s summons (Claw Island chapter) in hopes he doesn’t run into the screwed up PS. I really want him to meet Tonn. :-(

I went through it about a week ago, has not changed. Mother tree asked what was my greatest fear, I gave the response which normally gives the mesmer line (the friendly fire). personal story went right from the rancor ruins bit to the fort trinity bit. later, in the bit after Trahearne’s speech where he debriefs you on the greatest fear story bit, he gave me the lines as if I’d done the Tonn story.

Tommorow’s the day of truth, huh? Or in two weeks, possibly…

God I hope the PS changes are reversed this patch. I’ve not logged in since the patch in protest, and with the announcements I feel like I’m starting to cave. C’mon ANet, let me know that the faith I have in you isn’t misplaced!

The plot is busted – that’s very obvious from even a casual play through.

All it’d take from ANet is a simple statement: We know it is busted, we are working on a fix, no estimate. And then this thread wouldn’t be filled with disgruntled players.

Threads like this show ANet has a ways to go on communication.

Cassandra Nea.2507:

My confusion is now complete. I have reached level 80 and thereby advanced to the “Temple of the Forgotten God”. Before I can go there though, I must meet with Trahearne at Fort Trinity. The Marshal greets me with a speech about the inconsolable Ceera and her husband Tonn, who gave his life for the Pact. I am told I cannot take this tragedy on my own shoulders – their sacrifice was needed (I am paraphrasing here).
I go “Huh? Who the heck is Tonn or Ceera?”. I have never met these people before, and now it seems I never will….
Moving on – Trahearne beckons me to a distant corner of the fort and bursts out: “It is now safe to show yourself”. Out pop Sayeh al’Rajihd, who I am politely introduced to. She says she is honoured to meet me (or something similar) and that she has heard a lot about me. I am confused, since I met her at the end of chapter 7 (I was confused then too since she said it was good to see me again, while I hadn’t met her at that point).
Sayeh and I go to the Temple of the Forgotten God, where we meet a Mouth and Eye of Zhaitan. I am astonished again at the idea of Zaitan having eyes and mouths, even though I killed one of those eyes in chapter 7.

I haven’t gone any further – at this point the plot holes are so glaring that I just don’t know how anyone can overlook them.

i got the EXACT SAME PROBLEMS.

To this day, i still don’t know who tonn is aside from what the wiki says

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

The plot is busted – that’s very obvious from even a casual play through.

All it’d take from ANet is a simple statement: We know it is busted, we are working on a fix, no estimate. And then this thread wouldn’t be filled with disgruntled players.

Threads like this show ANet has a ways to go on communication.

It has been mentioned weeks ago according to a post from Gaile. I think they are working on it, but given the other stuff they do and I’d imagine Anet doesn’t have the manpower large enough to handle several issues in a timelier fashion, it’s definitely taking a bit longer than necessary. But that still doesn’t excuse the fact that this still kittenes me off the most.

EDIT: Here’s the link to the thread https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Changes-Coming-to-the-NPE/first

Malkavian.4516:

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

The plot is busted – that’s very obvious from even a casual play through.

All it’d take from ANet is a simple statement: We know it is busted, we are working on a fix, no estimate. And then this thread wouldn’t be filled with disgruntled players.

Threads like this show ANet has a ways to go on communication.

It has been mentioned weeks ago according to a post from Gaile. I think they are working on it, but given the other stuff they do and I’d imagine Anet doesn’t have the manpower large enough to handle several issues in a timelier fashion, it’s definitely taking a bit longer than necessary. But that still doesn’t excuse the fact that this still kittenes me off the most.

EDIT: Here’s the link to the thread https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Changes-Coming-to-the-NPE/first

The problem is this: that thread says they will address some plot holes from the new story, but doesn’t say anything more than that.

Do they realize that the removal of the “Greatest Fear” plotline created plot holes, or do they think that it’s an acceptable loss that you get to Fort Trinity with no idea why all the things that are happening there are happening?

In other words, maybe only the plot holes that came from Chapter 7/8 and the reordering of Orr are all that’s on their radar.

We don’t know because they never told us, and if there’s one thing on these forums it’s that it is very dangerous to assume anything, even if it seems like common sense and is obvious to (looks at the last 6 pages of this thread)… Every. Single. One. Of. Us.

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

Threads like this show ANet has a ways to go on communication.

Hit the nail on the head perfectly.

I still have hope, because I believe in this game and this company, but if we start assuming that they mean what we want them to mean when they’re vague, our futures only hold sadness…

I agree, more communication on ANet’s part would really help in this case. If we just knew that our concerns were being heard, if we knew what their plan was, there would be a lot less complaining.

Either Anet acknowledge they made a mistake by changing this, or are happy with the change and do not wish to change it back.

The fact that they have yet to get back to us on the issue, to me, leads to one of two conclusions. Either they can’t bring themselves to admit they fouled up, or they lack the courage to defend their decision. It’s not respectful to the community to just bury heads in the sand and hope we go away.

And goes back to the whole communication issue as has been said in their main thread and others. Talking to us is great, but if its all fluff and not actually addressing the issues that we have, is it useful communication, and if not, why bother with it at all?

I keep coming back here for news, hoping to see a new Dev response. I keep being disappointed and the forum icon for a dev response doesn’t help. (Somewhat OT suggestion: have a different colour dag post tag so you can see if there’s a new dev post in a thread you’ve read/posted in.)

Don’t think the delay is from not wanting to admit they fouled up — if they fix this there will be a very vague statement in the release notes and that’s it. Just look at Gaile’s carefully worded comment from a month ago: story inconsistencies that may have been introduced

I’d guess either:

• They really want to fix it, which means reworking art/voice assets, which means slow.
• This just isn’t a priority.

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

I’d guess either:

• They really want to fix it, which means reworking art/voice assets, which means slow.
• This just isn’t a priority.

If they really wanted to fix it they would put the old content back as it was, complete, in the proper order, with no reworked art/voice assets. That needn’t be slow.

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

Don’t think the delay is from not wanting to admit they fouled up — if they fix this there will be a very vague statement in the release notes and that’s it. Just look at Gaile’s carefully worded comment from a month ago: story inconsistencies that may have been introduced

I’d guess either:

• They really want to fix it, which means reworking art/voice assets, which means slow.
• This just isn’t a priority.

The real ‘fix’ will be putting everything back to what it was. The story was clear and this change make no sense and they are not explaining to us why they felt the need to do it.

Players who were on the mission (they didn’t lose their progress with the patch) confirmed they were able to do it which means the files still ingame but not active. Removing that part of the story is a waste of resources and time.

Greatest Fear being gone is maybe just a mistake. The plot holes introduced by moving Source of Orr forward is obviously a mistake. If the intention is to break the final missions into two equal sized chapters — ANet is maybe hoping to fix all this at once. That’s all I’m saying.

Of course it’d be better if ANet was saying, so we could skip all this guessing. That being the point of better communication.

I know ANet won’t talk about future work in case it never happens. Does this mean they won’t talk about the intention behind the last patch? With what they consider busted?

Even that would help with folks trying to figure out if they should delay doing Personal Story missions.

Thia.4891:

I agree, more communication on ANet’s part would really help in this case. If we just knew that our concerns were being heard, if we knew what their plan was, there would be a lot less complaining.

I hate to say it, but this communication problem is starting to seem like an issue that extends beyond the removal of the Greatest Fear plotline.

I think it would be a better policy for them to start posting updates letting us know about what they have in the works or even just ideas they are tossing around the office.

It’s starting to feel like maybe they could benefit from hearing our perspectives before they invest a lot of time/effort/energy/money into some of their ideas. It seems like the community as a whole might be better at seeing red flags and issues a system could have before going live. This is something that might be able to help them not waste resources on things that cause problems like this.

The removal of the Greatest Fear plotline and the reordering of Orr highlight just one recent example of this. By no means is it the only recent example, but those other examples are other topics for other threads.

Still, I can’t give up hope that they will find a way to do the right thing and make this right in the end. It’s starting to get harder to maintain that faith though, and that’s making me really sad…