Guild Wars 2

=> Skip the wall of text

So, with the latest debacle on the Living Story front stirring up people’s jimmies, I think it’s appropriate time to sit down, start the fire, pull out the marshmallows, and talk about the quality of writing in Guild Wars 2.

Or the lack of thereof.

Note: I have to preface this by saying I’m not a writer. I’m not even a native speaker. I never made vidygames, not a developer. But I still have an opinion and by the Divine you’re going to read it. I mean, if that’s okay with you. Thanks anyway.

You see, a good story is like a good soup. Okay, so maybe it’s nothing like a good soup, what I’m trying to say is: it usually needs certain ingredients to make sure your customers don’t stomp out in vomitous anger. Like salt. Water. This kind of thing.

So, you see, the salt of almost every story is its characters. How they swim around in your garlic soup is what makes the reader care about your epic tale of magic and dragons and bad soup analogies.

Let’s start with the basics.

1. Characters

This isn’t actually such a hard task, and you have to admit Guild Wars 2 throws some interesting people at you here and there. Well, occasionally. That’s a good thing.

All you really need to do to make people care about your characters is to show them speaking their mind or interacting with something. You may not feel too attached to someone after that, but if they suddenly fall down screaming, you’ll just a tiny pinch of sympathy somewhere in the back of your head.

The rule here is simple: the more the better. The more you know about someone, the more invested you are. That’s it. This won’t get you quite as far as making good characters, but it will allow you to make decent ones, and thus a decent story.

Good: The commanders assigned to you in your personal story. You spend time with them. You see them do things. You talk. You might not like them, you may not care, but at least you might vaguely remember them.

Bad: Destiny’s Edge. We have no reason to care about a bunch of people we don’t know and their petty squabbles. Moving on.

Worst: Trahearne. Scarlet. Oh boy. This magnitude of screwtititude usually comes about due to writer’s egotism – by which I mean, when the writer fails to take into account just how a player might feel when suddenly all their attention is asked to revolve around a random unlikeable and undeveloped pebble that is suddenly elevated to status of a God. Deicide is an absolutely justified response in this situation.

2. The Soup

Which is the analogy for the grand setting of your story.

Guild Wars 2 looks amazingly pretty thanks to hard work of every artist, but contains almost nothing interesting in it. Moving on.

Actually, no, let’s not move on. Let’s talk about what makes something not just pretty, but interesting as well. The formula here can be summed in one word: “History.” Something that happened to a place, something that the place means, something that a place can do.

The procedure here is also dead simple, then. Show things happening. Tell us what happened. Tell us what can happen. The only obstacle is to not bore us to tears by exposition: it has to be put in just the right place.

Good: Ascalon’s ghost plains. Works amazingly well if you know and care about the backstory of this place, but even without it, you still immediately understand that something really bad has happened here. You might not care too much, but you do remember it.

Bad: Iron marches. The only purple place on the map that looked so cool in the concept art. Lots of monsters and even a dragon, yet nothing’s really going on.

Worst: Orr. The one thing you can do even worse than nothing, is to introduce a concept that sounds interesting and make it shockingly droll, void of all meaning, or even outright depressing. Nothing is more depressing than a bunch of respawning zombie mobs standing around a featureless desert doing nothing at all.

3. How to Swim in the Soup

And finally, the plot, AKA, “Stuff that happens.”

Again, this is actually really hard to screw up if your goal is to make some kind of story. All you need is things happening, the more the better. If things aren’t happening, you’re just wasting people’s time. No one likes it. It’s rude.

Ideally, what you want in your plot are things that establish and build upon your setting and characters. But this is quite a bit harder, so let’s not go there.

Good: I got nothing. If you had a dragon attack Divinity’s Reach, at least it’s be a plot point, because it’d be an interaction between things we know and maybe vaguelly care about. Oh, wait, the impending attack on Lion’s Arch would count – if it wasn’t sabotaged by the player knowing full-well it won’t be destroyed because it’s still there. Also, players can’t die, so they can’t possibly care about their own death.

Bad: Trahearne. Good job making the plot revolve around someone we don’t care about. Nothing that happens has any meaning now. At this point people will get angry at you for wasting their time with things they don’t care about.

Worst: Scarlet. One thing worse than nothing is a completely random thing that makes no sense, or worse, destroys the rest of your plot. Don’t do things that have absolutely no relation to your established story or characters. Don’t.

So here you go. Your three basic ingredients for making a story. The question then is, does Guild Wars 2 have those ingredients? Did Guild Wars have those ingredients? Can you remember where they were or weren’t used properly, and what’s missing?

Ask yourselves these questions, and any answer you can come up with will make for a better story.

Not necessarily a good story, but definitely a better one.

So, now that we have the basics covered, let’s… What? What’s that?

Oh right. Knowing these forums, one inevitable reply will always be “Making games is hard, cut the writers some slack” or “Well, I’d like to see YOU do better.”

Alright. Okay.

So here’s what I’ve done with a couple hours’ worth of time and only 3 trait points invested in my writing skills – but, taking into account the lessons learned. Maybe it’s not a great script, but… the point is, could you come up with something better than what we got? I think you could. I think you could come up with something much better. I think I could too.

You see, some people were actually interested in the Thaumanova Reactor, and for a reason – it had an element of good writing we call “Mystery”. Just what was it that happened there? What caused this crazy biz up in that place? Why did the reactor explode? Why is it filled with portals to other dimensions? It’s interesting to wonder. It’s exciting to finally be able to find out.

The Thaumanova Reactor Disaster: “No Scarlet” Edition, Volume I
(Html version)

Did you read the above story/gameplay script? What, you didn’t even want to read it? If so, the rest will be chock-full of spoilers for something you don’t care about.

Did you like it? No? Well, in that case the following will make no sense. But, remember, we’re not looking for a good story just yet, we’re looking for a better one than what we got. With Scarlet, I mean.

What we’re going to do is form a bullet list of what could be done with the story (as proven by example) that would probably be an improvement.

Let’s begin.

1. No Scarlet in sight. Instant improvement in every way.
2. Look at that, a character that’s neither a snarling villain nor a shining hero. That’s odd.
3. The character seems to be talking to you, but also provides some exposition of the plot without sitting you down at the desk for a history lesson. So that’s possible.
4. This character we’ve just met seems to be capable of more than one tone of voice or emotion. A truly unique ability in the land of Tyria, it seems.
5. “Inquest colleagues?” What’s going on? I thought we were in a world of cartoon villains. Inquest did it!
6. The character calls out the player as if they were really there. This happens sometimes in the game, but not nearly often enough. How can you feel a part of the world if the world doesn’t acknowledge your existence? Speaking of…
7. Your actions seem to cause something to happen. Man, it’s almost like you’re playing a game or something.
8. Whoops. And it’s nothing epicly heroic, either. No damsels to rescue, no worlds to save, no villagers to free. Looks like you’ve made a mistake. So it’s possible.
9. Hm, your mistake seems to have had some sort of negative effect on the gameplay. Like that time you drank a potion labeled “Poison” and instantly dropped dead? That was nice. It’s a bit of actual interaction in an interactive medium.
10. That one character you’ve been introduced to is helping you somehow instead of playing dead. This often happens in the Personal Story, but almost never anywhere else. AI companions need to be competent to make us not hate them, you see.

11. Well that was a bummer. Looks like things are getting worse instead of instantly better when you finish your task. Almost gives you a sense of danger, no?
12. More unexplained stuff is happening. Remember when the Molten Alliance invaded and no one knew what that was? That was fun until we got a bad answer to that question. Again, no Scarlet = Instant improvement.
13. A conversation that doesn’t interrupt the gameplay.
14. Something really big and epic is going on. Don’t see that too often. Might be fun.
15. A recurring central theme of the game. Did we forget about that entirely? What, are dragons that boring? Did we have to have Scarlet in their place? The answer is, Scarlet is terrible and should go away.
16. A change of scenery. Something other than rolling green hills and brown featureless plains. Variety is the spice of life.
17. Aren’t dragons supposed to be evil? Like, all of them. You know, like cartoon villains. Wait, why is this treated like a tragedy? How dare the doctor treat a random act of murder as something to be avoided?
18. So you killed a dragon. Good! Just leave it there. Oh wait, you’re in a Fractal, which is a recording of past history with no ability to change it. I was almost immersed in what was happening for a second there. So that’s also possible.
19. Your health is ticking down even though there are no enemies in sight. And now you have to fight air? I’m afraid of this new type of gameplay. We should go back to whailing on monsters.
20. Use teamwork to accomplish a gameplay goal? Surely you jest. I don’t want to feel a connection with other people in a multiplayer setting.
21. Didn’t see that one coming, did you? Plot twists are still a thing. It’s possible.
22. You and your friends are dead. Everyone’s dead. Thanks, Obama. But, guess we don’t have to save the day at the end to have a story after all.

So, you see, you don’t have to have a villain of the week summoning random monsters to tell a story. You don’t need players do heroic things (brutal murder of everything in sight, that is) every time, all of the time. You don’t need to threaten players with horrible death (because they know they cant die). If you don’t need to do that, then surely you can write a story that isn’t just a re-tread of every episode of Power Rangers.

And maybe, just maybe, we can do things a little bit better next time.

And for those of you who reach the end of this post: Thank you.

I didn’t read the doc, but those 22 points do sound very good. Someone do this.

Randulf.7614:

There’s a lot of this discussed in the stickied CDI thread…

Oh yeah. There are lots and lots of people speaking their mind making totally valid points. That’s what prompted me to write this wall of text too. I think this may be more unique in leading by example.

Also, could you re-post this? It’s kind of sandwiched in the middle of a wall of text.

Forst.5863:

I didn’t read the doc, but those 22 points do sound very good. Someone do this.

Fantastic, thank you.

The point of this exercise was to prove that it is indeed possible to do it, so someone definitely can.

Everything was nice but #4. I will murder you if you say something bad about her voice actress.

Trixie.7614:

Everything was nice but #4. I will murder you if you say something bad about her voice actress.

I would never bad-mouth Ms. Sparkle. Her work on Scarlet’s maniacal outbursts is a shining gem of competent and energetic delivery.

It’s just that the script only calls for only one single mode of operation for the beep-boop I-am-a-robot villain-of-the-week.

I always thought the Thaumanova Reactor was a Second Rata Sum city destroyed by the Inquest some how.

Even the Asuran npcs around metrica kinda point everything into that direction.

My one question is why does it look completely different to the Metrica Province version and why are the inquest allowing normal Asurans to clean up their secrets, i came to one large conclusion.

The whole Thaumanova Meltdown Fractal was total hogwash.

From what I can gather, you’re right.

Or, uh… Well, I think there has been a development clash somewhere, or different versions of lore were implemented at different times, and so the place ended up being vaguely unexplainedly somewhere between an experimental research lab and an inhabited city, also with inquest and magic somewhere in-between maybe mentioned somewhere.

This actually ended up being a boon: unexplained and weird places surrounded in mystery equal good writing in most cases. It’s fun to wonder.

I’ve just played through the Fractal today, and I can say, without slightest exaggeration, that it was even worse than what I expected it to be when I’ve read through a couples pages of rage on these forums.

It would literally be better if they had done nothing at all with this place.

I will only say it short.
Seeing Scarlet in there made me disappointed.

Not getting almost any information about the reactor aside from short sentence from scarlet was really bad.

I would love to get some tactical briefing before we entered the reactor so we would know what was the situation and what was to be done but we entered in there without any way of knowing what is going on.

Dante.1508:

I always thought the Thaumanova Reactor was a Second Rata Sum city destroyed by the Inquest some how.

Even the Asuran npcs around metrica kinda point everything into that direction.

My one question is why does it look completely different to the Metrica Province version and why are the inquest allowing normal Asurans to clean up their secrets, i came to one large conclusion.

The whole Thaumanova Meltdown Fractal was total hogwash.

Scarlet DID work with the Inquest during said situation, so technically it was destroyed by the Inquest and their experiments.

Hiroshima looked quite different after the nuclear explosion as well.
And the end of the Fractal looks quite much like a nuclear explosion.

Septemptus.7164:

Not getting almost any information about the reactor aside from short sentence from scarlet was really bad … we entered in there without any way of knowing what is going on.

It’s actually amazing how little exposition there was, or is in general.

Okay, you’re making a game, you can’t overwhelm the players with story when they’re busy slaying a dozen monsters – but it’s like they aren’t even trying now.

Failing is one thing, but first you have to at least try.

lordkrall.7241:

Scarlet DID work with the Inquest during said situation, so technically it was destroyed by the Inquest and their experiments.

Wiki says the explosion was the fault of an underground Inquest lab. Don’t if it’s true, frankly, don’t really care.

The point stands: any of these explanations are better than “Scarlet did it.”

It’s not just completely out of left field and nonsensical, it’s outright immersion-breaking. You can’t take a story that offers answers like this even remotely seriously.

Ah don’t worry, I’ve removed said post so it doesn’t interrupt your posts (I didn’t realise you hadn’t finished when I posted).

Draco.2806:

Wiki says the explosion was the fault of an underground Inquest lab. Don’t if it’s true, frankly, don’t really care.

The point stands: any of these explanations are better than “Scarlet did it.”

It’s not just completely out of left field and nonsensical, it’s outright immersion-breaking. You can’t take a story that offers answers like this even remotely seriously.

And how is that any different from what I said?
The fact still remains that we KNOW that Scarlet worked with the Inquest, thus it is not really that unfit that she would be present at one of their biggest historical points, especially since it would most likely fit her timeline.

How is it immersion-breaking that someone that worked with a certain group was with said group when said group did stuff?

Trixie.7614:

Everything was nice but #4. I will murder you if you say something bad about her voice actress.

Scarlet is best pony!

Randulf.7614:

Ah don’t worry, I’ve removed said post so it doesn’t interrupt your posts (I didn’t realise you hadn’t finished when I posted).

Thanks!

lordkrall.7241:

And how is that any different from what I said?

Well… I was agreeing with you.

lordkrall.7241:

The fact still remains that we KNOW that Scarlet worked with the Inquest, thus it is not really that unfit that she would be present at one of their biggest historical points, especially since it would most likely fit her timeline.

Sure. It fits.

I mean, if you’re a writer, you can fit her anywhere you want, really. Just say “Scarlet did it.”

The problem here isn’t that you can’t fit her inside the plot holes if you squeeze hard enough, it’s that people instinctively feel – and they’re right – that a character like Scarlet doesn’t belong in the world of Guild Wars, period. It doesn’t help that everything we’ve seen that involved her has been horrible either. Her being shoved into Thaumanova is just the latest debacle, the previous shoehorned-in plots are no better. People are getting more and more fed up with it the more they do it.

Some of the reasons for that are discussed in the OP, but there are so many others. It’s truly fascinating just how wrong ANet have approached this, on every level.

lordkrall.7241:

How is it immersion-breaking that someone that worked with a certain group was with said group when said group did stuff?

No, no. Scarlet herself is what’s immersion-breaking. It’s the kind of writing so bad you can’t help but notice it – and this completely shatters what could be left of any investment you may have in the story.

Bad writing takes you out of the moment. That’s it.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Scarlet is best pony!

original character plz do not steal

So, because you don’t like the story of the thaumanova reactor, you just steal the plot of Half-Life.

Pushing the sample (a glowing crystal) in a small cart into the reactor, which causes an explosion, and creatures start portalling in, while a professor “Klein” watches… All it needs is a “resonance cascade” line.

Piogre.2164:

So, because you don’t like the story of the thaumanova reactor, you just steal the plot of Half-Life.

Thaumanova itself is an obvious Black Mesa stand-in. Of course I steal it.

It would be wrong to do otherwise. When you reference work of other people, you have to acknowledge it.

Thanks for taking a look.

Draco.2806:

perilisk.1874:

Yes, do something original like put you right in the middle of the disaster as it happens. You’re a lowly Asuran scientist, tasked with equipping a Hazmat Suit and delivering a sample of chaos material to a test chamber. Upon placing it into the test apparatus, everything goes haywire, you’re briefly teleported to a variety of locales inside and outside of Tyria, and then returned to a facility in chaos.

You manage to arm yourself with a simple “The Fixer” wrench to fend off the karka hatchlings now infesting the facility, along with strange creatures from outside Tyria. When Asuran Peacekeepers arrive, you’re overjoyed — only to find that they are eliminating any trace of the incident, including the surviving Thaumanova research staff. Then a bunch of stuff happens, you go to the Mists and complete an obnoxious JP and fight a Karka Queen and a giant baby that controls the invading creatures, and finally Scarlet shows up and puts you in stasis.

Just hire this guy, I don’t know.

Anyone who’s well-versed enough in interactive storytelling to recognize the parallels between Thaumanova and Black Mesa would do a much better job at it than what we got.