Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: I started A Light in the Darkness pre-patch and I finished it up post-patch. I have yet to play a brand new character for me to go through that quest again to confirm whether or not my own greatest fears (cwutididthar) have been realized. And I also mentioned this on the bug report thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Personal-Story-parts-missing/first#post4402381

You are free to take what I have to say with a grain of salt if you will as I could be wrong.

Okay, I noticed that there has been people expressing their complaints in these forums and on reddit regarding The Greatest Fear, a part of the Personal Story quest, A Light in the Darkness about removing the quests related to what you selected as the thing you fear the most, be it seeing your comrades suffer, die or letting them down. Now what grabbed me the wrong way is that there is very little conclusive evidence indicating that those quests were removed from the game completely other than screenshots from players showing their Story Journal. Upon reading the article Anet posted regarding a Fresh Start, the patch was supposed to combine quests into larger chapters, hence we wouldn’t be able to access them until we reach a particular level.

By that logic, that would mean that those quests were not removed from the game at all but rather merged with other story quests as part of the large chapters. My basis for this is indicated in EXHIBIT A: The summary of the Forging a Pact where it indicates and I quote:

“….asked me to make sure a key element of that campaign is ready for the rigors of war.”

By this “key element”, from my personal playthrough of the game, this is the Krait Orb I was supposed to get while working with Apatia.

EXHIBIT B: The summary of Battle of Fort Trinity mentions, and I also quote: “I have to finish the mission I started at Trahearne’s request”.

This includes the quest where I have to find Apatia, and end her misery and end it by mentioning her deeds to the other Norn at Hoelbrak.

If we are going to go with the information here, I can safely say that these quests were not removed from the game at all, but rather the details of those plot points were reduced in favor of providing a condensed story. If I am right, then I would say that this change still isn’t very favorable, but it is something I will be able to deal with very easily as I really like seeing those details elaborated further rather than have them reduced to single sentences.

I have noted that the descriptions of Forging the Pact and The Battle of Fort Trinity has not changed at all from their original state.

See:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Forging_the_Pact&oldid=827584#My_Story
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=The_Battle_of_Fort_Trinity&oldid=823752#My_Story

Furthermore, the dialogue in the actual story steps seems to be unchanged from what I have gathered.

This says nothing to say the quests were removed. It just means that ArenaNet didn’t bother to alter any text when they shifted and removed stuff.

Has anyone actually played through the Orr storyline this week to see conclusively whether those steps are there or not?

I mean, the story-shuffle is still a problem, and cutting memorable story arcs out of the journal is also bad, but the most important question is whether that arc is still in the game or not. I haven’t seen anyone conclusively say one way or the other. (Which is easier said than done, because someone basically has to play the entire Pact arc to make sure it hasn’t been moved somewhere, not just where it used to be.)

This is where a simple “Yes, it’s still there,” or “No, it’s been removed” from Anet would be helpful. Although, if it’s the latter, I can see why a simple answer would be as much trouble as no answer. e__e