Guild Wars 2

You know, the pyramid effect of story telling in GW2 isn’t that bad a thing. Still, the fact that the extensive diversity found in the storyline quickly bottlenecks into a singular narrative, it’s a bit of a bummer.

The reason for all this is Orr.
Firstly, the invasion of Orr felt a bit lacking, I mean a unity between all races and the three Orders, all united to battle the greatest enemy Tyria has ever known, well, you don’t really get to see any large offensives. There is no major push into hostile territory, no large scale offensives. The largest battles are around the temples of the gods, true, but still, I’m referring to the orders actually invading the borders of Orr. The Vigil sending large groups to battle undead, the Order of Whispers battling to obtain clandestine footholds that might grant an edge, and the Priory using arcane knowledge of Orrian nature to craft openings in the battle lines.

Something like this. While the interior of Orr should look war torn and the struggling forces battle to gain footholds in the temples. Around the borders the feeling lacks that desperation to gain entrance, especially at the Straits of Devastation. A Normandy beachhead of sorts, if you get my meaning.

Secondly, to get back to my initial point, the personal story. I like the fact that you brought the Orders together, but why does it feel like your character abandons the roots of why he chose his order. I mean, yes, you still make choices of how you’ll approach some missions, but wouldn’t it make more sense for the orders to focus on what makes them special.

For instance, if I joined the Vigil, my order’s purpose will be to push into the heart of Zhaitan’s forces. Take on the toughest of his minions, eliminating his elite while the other orders do their things. If you’re part of another order, then you’ll get to experience the war effort from their perspective.
Like say, the Whispers will track down the Mouth of Zhaitan, playing a cat and mouse game, taking artifacts to sass the creature out. And the Priory will focus on the Eyes of Zhaitan, using their knowledge and arcane incantations to force knowledge out of them.

The storylines can even interact. For example, if you play Vigil, someone can mention that the Priory had pulled valuable information from an Eye of Zhaitan, observing a large attack force on the move, which means the Vigil will deal with it, since that’s their function in the Pact.

I don’t know, this makes a lot of sense to me, and I wish the story had something like this. The Orders have such strong identities, and your foundations in your chosen, as well as what makes each of them potent seems to dissolve during the battle at Orr.

TL;DR
Wouldn’t it be more interesting to have more personalized participation by the orders during the late stages of the game? I.e:
Vigil – combat against large groups of enemies or massive enemies types of DE/story
Priory – arcane/mystical themed DE/story
Whispers – stealth and assassin themed DE/story

Well here are my 2 cents on “personal” story,

The whole thing is really fun and enjoying untill the moment that friking tree guy (whose name i will not utter here) simply comes by and hijacks it.

Then there are no more orders, no more my warband, no more Logan or any other character that was involved and made the whole thing fun, its all about the undead and the tree guy…

The whole storyline becomes stale and boring and honestly i am still stuck on the temple of the old gods underwater quest simply lacking the motivation to find out more about my “personal” tree guy story -.-’

I think it sounds pretty cool :P As far as ideas go this one is pretty coherent. The thought of the 70 to 80 storyline missions maintaining the themes of the chosen order is appealing, furthering the uniqueness of the possible available stories. Perhaps following much the same format as the initial Order segment of the story lines, only instead of your tutor, you have Trahearne, proposing a choice of two missions that relate to your expertise as a decorated member of the (Vigil, Whispers or Priory), and not just you as “The Commander.”

This would reduce the generic feeling you get from being “The Commander”, an entity that is streamlined for what seems to act like the Pact’s Secret Weapon, of which there is several million (The players). On one hand we can see some of the reasoning behind the choice made by the developers in dubbing us as “The Commander,” as it means we transcend the differences that are represented by the three Orders, and as such the 5 races, however this has the unfortunate outcome of negating other features that add to a players immersion in the narrative.

While there is still some variation available in the 70 to 80 missions, this section does seem to have less gripping story than some of the earlier missions, and this is in part due to the uniqueness gained from earlier choices being undermined by becoming “The Commander.” I personally didn’t encounter a mission I didn’t enjoy until this final 70 to 80 stretch, and while this doesn’t bother me in respect of the over all game, I haven’t been as compelled to complete the end of the story as I was in the beginning and subsequent developments.

This is my perspective on the Orr segment of the story missions. I still haven’t completed all of the level 80 story missions, but your post has prompted me to do some constructive reflection.

Yeah, I think it’s funny how it’s your “personal” story and you feel like an Ancillary character while Salad-Man is actually the protagonist.

As for the invasion of Orr, I think that was supposed to be covered by the Invasion DE chains in Straits of devastation. I’ve honestly never done them though, as all three invasion chains were broken when I first got to the Straits. Since then, there’s usually been at least one broken every time I go through, except for one time when there was just nobody else in the zone to participate, leaving me to try to fight off 20 risen simultaneously after the dozen worse-than-useless pact troops in the event get wiped out by one risen plague carrier. /facepalm

Caused a major disconnect in my story.

Something like this. While the interior of Orr should look war torn and the struggling forces battle to gain footholds in the temples. Around the borders the feeling lacks that desperation to gain entrance, especially at the Straits of Devastation. A Normandy beachhead of sorts, if you get my meaning.

The unfortunate problem, is that in the early 1-2 weeks of the game, the Orr zones did look like this. The problem is the zones are not scaling well to the number of players in them now. There are major chains I haven’t seen fire off in weeks because the NPC forces can’t even win the first step in the chain due to event grinding.

Cursed Shore, Straits, etc used to be absolutely dangerous to get around in. Veterans/Champs, large NPC patrols everywhere. Now I can just follow a road, or weave between the few enemy spawns that remain. When i first got to Cursed Shore, there were 20-30 mobs blocking the immediate entrance, that required waiting for people to bust through. Now i can walk from the entrance to the southern waypoint while only fighting 3-6 mobs total.

ProxiiG.5830:

The whole thing is really fun and enjoying untill the moment that friking tree guy (whose name i will not utter here) simply comes by and hijacks it.

The whole storyline becomes stale and boring and honestly i am still stuck on the temple of the old gods underwater quest simply lacking the motivation to find out more about my “personal” tree guy story -.-’

With this I cannot agree more. Trahearne definitely has a purpose in the sylvari early story, but he should have been a side character at most. And a lot of people agree with this, just to name one:
http://www.killtenrats.com/2012/09/18/gw2-order-up-trahearne/

I wish the order tales would have been more concrete. I appreciate the fact that the orders wanted someone on the outside to carry their voice, but place him in charge seems a bit much. He should have been a mediator, someone to bridge the gap, and carry the voice from one order to the next, not usurp your character’s purpose.

I still think the the story in Orr should have been driven by the orders. You should have been led the charge of your own order, and thus it could have affected the actions of the other orders. Trehearne should have worked in tandem with the order’s chosen leaders on Orr, while your character take the initiative an bring the offensive to action.