What’s cool in GW2 is the dark undertone to lore and the dungeons – there’s some seriously twisted stuff there like that Inquest dudes Dragon research, and Baelfire turning himself into a god, and all of the Orr stuff and Jormah/Kralk stuff. The world is literally collapsing and going to the kitten around people.
However I think GW2 focuses too much on being funny and cutesie, which boxes of fun and celebrations and toymakers all of the time.
This world should be dark and dangerous – humanity lives in 2 cities, the Norn have been driven South, the Charr are struggling against the Dragonbrand and Flame Legion and the Sylvari are having a civil war. The world doesn’t reflect the actual lore we are told which is a big shame I think.
All the world ending stuff is completely contradicted by all the goofiness of fun boxes and the bad humour in the world.
If you take the Scarlet short story, that has her pretty brutally murder her mentor at the end of it, and compare it to the anime silly team rocket tone that you actually see in game for her . . . yeah, it’s a bit frustrating. I like a lot of the lighthearted stuff in GW2, but there is definitely a little too much of it. We could do with some serious business.
Personally, I enjoy the humor and mostly light-hearted tone of Gw2. I feel like if the game was just wallowing in it’s own pit of despair it’d be a bit of a turn off.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I feel like the game has struck a nice balance between stark moments of hopelessness and small flashes okittenwardly delivered humour.
Yeah, I agree. The short story about Scarlet made her sound actually dark and menacing. In-game she’s closer to a Disney villain.
It’s not just with Scarlet. It’s with everything from the Nightmare Court, to Kralkk and Jormag.
The only truly horrifying thing I’ve seen in this game was when the Hylek’s Champions’ brother got corrupted and turned into a Risen…we need more stuff like that.
Personally, I enjoy the humor and mostly light-hearted tone of Gw2. I feel like if the game was just wallowing in it’s own pit of despair it’d be a bit of a turn off.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I feel like the game has struck a nice balance between stark moments of hopelessness and small flashes okittenwardly delivered humour.
I reckon we need a dark tone, with flashes of humour. At the moment it’s the other way round. This would make the humourers bits far more endearing and actually funny, instead of just goofy.
But what we need are panda hats, and rainbow pooping unicorns, and plush backpacks. There’s no danger! Only fun and light! What dragon?
Variations on this complaint have been going around since BWE1. They’re not going to change, I swear at least one or two of the lead devs are atually 12yo girls.
But what we need are panda hats, and rainbow pooping unicorns, and plush backpacks. There’s no danger! Only fun and light! What dragon?
Variations on this complaint have been going around since BWE1. They’re not going to change, I swear at least one or two of the lead devs are atually 12yo girls.
Yeah, I agree. The short story about Scarlet made her sound actually dark and menacing. In-game she’s closer to a Disney villain.
Did you guys miss the part in the Closing Ceremony instance where she blew up all those innocent civilians and the Seraph protecting them? The fifth bomb, remember?
Yeah, I agree. The short story about Scarlet made her sound actually dark and menacing. In-game she’s closer to a Disney villain.
Did you guys miss the part in the Closing Ceremony instance where she blew up all those innocent civilians and the Seraph protecting them? The fifth bomb, remember?
Shame we didn’t see that in game, and no one actually seemed to care.
Yeah, I agree. The short story about Scarlet made her sound actually dark and menacing. In-game she’s closer to a Disney villain.
Did you guys miss the part in the Closing Ceremony instance where she blew up all those innocent civilians and the Seraph protecting them? The fifth bomb, remember?
That would have been a great time for a few ‘stills’ (like the Jennah and Faren scenes) showing us some devastation and destruction. Maybe something like this panel from The Uncanny X-men #142 way back in 1981. Probably too dark for GW2, though.
Yeah, I agree. The short story about Scarlet made her sound actually dark and menacing. In-game she’s closer to a Disney villain.
If you take a close look at Disney villains they are actually pretty frikin dark . the Imagery used in lion king for the song be prepared mimicked WWII german propaganda films, Cruella De Ville wanted to make cloths out of puppies and Maleficent ( darkest of all ) sought revenge for being snubbed from a party essentially .
Yeah, I agree. The short story about Scarlet made her sound actually dark and menacing. In-game she’s closer to a Disney villain.
If you take a close look at Disney villains they are actually pretty frikin dark . the Imagery used in lion king for the song be prepared mimicked WWII german propaganda films, Cruella De Ville wanted to make cloths out of puppies and Maleficent ( darkest of all ) sought revenge for being snubbed from a party essentially .
Heh, Maleficent is who came to mind when I read that post.
I never really found Guild Wars 2 in a dark fashion. It seems to like going for that kind of hammy, heroic fantasy thing going. It gets really cheesy at points but I see as more of a stylistic choice rather than an objective flaw.
And whoever did Scarlet must have watched the Batman cartoon as a child. :p
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,
for there you have been and there you will long to return.
The current tone doesn’t seem to “match up” too much with the wanton slaughter the game rewards me for doing. Double trouble if I end up getting the critters daily!
This is a reason I had to turn off/change the music, though. Way too “happy” considering my (and nearly every other players’) killing sprees.
However I think GW2 focuses too much on being funny and cutesie, which boxes of fun and celebrations and toymakers all of the time.
All the world ending stuff is completely contradicted by all the goofiness of fun boxes and the bad humour in the world.
Pretty reflective of RL, imo. All we need is Miley popping out of a fun box and dancing around lol
But seriously, I think the diversity is good for mmo game design. I’d like to see even more range, like bright alien florescent glowing forests to burning choking darker twisted landscapes where even the risen would have a hard time surviving. Maybe even introduce an Asura portal to a moon where they establish a futuristic sci-fi style base where the golems become the new overlords. IMO an opportunity to break the common molds of elves vs spaceships.
I can agree a little darker/more serious story would be nice. I can’t take scarlet serious really. She comes here and there and plays around, joking, while throwing tons of monsters at us. Also the conversations in the queen’s jubilee seem to be for a very young audience.
It would be really great if the events felt a bit more believable. An evil force is not funny/joking or even kind. What I hope is that there will be some epic content where we feel like we can make a difference. They said thats what they are planning that decisions we players are taking are changing the outcome of the future story but the story doesn’t seem to be meaningful enough yet. I mean there is a scarlet freaky girl running around joking, playing games with the queen and other NPC’s.
I think if the dialogues were more serious and maybe also had more tension it would attract us players alot more.
Also some powerful force like Zhaitan threathening Tyria would be something epic. I liked the main story. If the living story had the same feel of threat we players might feel more involved in the world.
Here is one example: With the scarlet events noone really cares about winning against her. We all just farm the champions and lose the fight because it just makes no difference and we don’t feel like there is any meaning there to win.
Now an example of a really cool invasion theme:
A really powerful force like a dragon or a risen master is trying to invade Tyria but it will become obvious only over time. First there are some appearances in some areas where monsters arise and attack the settlers/groups living there. Over the days these invasions become more and more powerful and new areas are attacked. Even if we players fight them back they will still try again like we have the invasion from scarlet now. But we players should see an effect. If we fight them back constantly on one map they become weaker there and will appear in other areas of the map. But that way we feel like we saved these regions. It made a difference that we fought them. If we would ignore the danger and only farm that would mean that the map would be overrun because we didn’t care about the story and the threat.
After the first invasions and maybe some missions into the heart of the evil to find out what is the cause of these invasions maybe the risen master/dragon will call out the fall of tyria to his legions. This should sound like a real challenge and people should be excited and ready to do whatever is neccessary to stop him. We would know that it is up to us to stop this threat and to save tyria from a real force.
After that the invasions could come closer and closer to the cities which we players call our homes. And if we fail we should see the impact on the maps, maybe even in the towns. This would also become a living story. If a town falls we players would do all we are capable of to free the town from the creatures and to bring back the beloved NPC’s to that city. Such a story would leave an epic taste. People would really want to know what will happen and they would see that their actions actually make a difference.
The main story was epic. If the living story was as epic it would be really great. And while humor is great the main event and the main “evil” character shouild not be humorous and funny in my opinion because it makes it less meaningful.
One more thing for the invasions. In the example which I described it would be important that these invasions are not happening on the same maps for the entire two weeks. That would make our efforts seem a waste. The story should react to us faster which absolutely possible to implement. For example it could start with hordes of 50s of monsters that appear. If the players fight them back the evil force will try to force us back by sending more and more like an army. If we still manage to succeed they will resign and try it elsewhere. Now there could be an ingame message that dark forces were seen in some region of Tyria. So the players will travel there to find out what happened and see that the invasion takes place there. That might be day two of the event. And so it continues until the evil gets too powerful in a region and the players have to retreat into a town. Now the NPC’s realize that there is a real threat. Hordes are preparing to attack for example Lions Arch. They will prepare defenses and at a certain time the full force will strike there. It should be difficult and maybe the players will succeed in fighting them back. (Such an event would be perfect for the weekend) If not Lions Arch has fallen. The NPC’s have retreated back into the mountains in desperation. The next day there are rumors that the dragon or the main force has left Lions Arch and that is the moment when they try to take back the town.
I guess you see my point. Such a story would really be a living story and it would be so decent
I would love such epic events. It would be pretty much unique in the world of the MMO’s.
It seems at present the game is lighthearted with dark interludes. I think this is the wrong way around. It should be dark with moments of lightheartedness and humour to break up the despair. Taking cue from the ancient tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles etc when performed they took the form of a trilogy with a satyr play afterwards which acted as the comic relief to break up the depressing and gloomy atmosphere. It worked spectacularly well.
All the world ending stuff is completely contradicted by all the goofiness of fun boxes and the bad humour in the world.
This game isn’t about the apocalypse. It’s about coming together to fight and win against overwhelming odds. It’s about seeing the monster driving the end of days, laughing, and then clocking it in the face.
It seems at present the game is lighthearted with dark interludes. I think this is the wrong way around. It should be dark with moments of lightheartedness and humour to break up the despair. Taking cue from the ancient tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles etc when performed they took the form of a trilogy with a satyr play afterwards which acted as the comic relief to break up the depressing and gloomy atmosphere. It worked spectacularly well.
There are plenty of games like that and fewer that don’t stress the grimdark elements. I like grimdark as much as anyone else (I’ve actually been playing a lot of The Secret World lately) but it gets oppressive when lighthearted options are few and far between.
I main Ele and Necro, though I have an alt of each profession at level 80. How to Condi Reaper on a budget
Everything I say is only in reference to PvE and WvW.
Well, it doesn’t have to be grim and dark all the time…
But given the situation Tyria is in right now, given the underlying premise of the game as laid out by the developers – with Elder Dragons at large, a threat to everything, everywhere, and with the major powers in the world knowing about this threat – all this rampant silliness is just plain silly.
What kind of game is this, anyway? I don’t think anet even knows anymore.
As I’ve said in another post:
The game tells one thing and shows completely another.
Says: World in peril, Shows: Partying. There’s nothing to support that Tyria is in danger.
Says: Humanity on verge of extinction, Shows: few centaur attacks here and there. Besides humans have exactly the same everything as other races – big capital, smaller towns. And the rest isn’t supposedly on the edge…
Says: invasions, Shows: Mobs teleporting in swamps doing nothing.
Says: Dragons awoke. Shows: Zhaitan. That’s a dragon, not dragons.
Presentation is horrible. We have beautiful festivals full of details, but one important detail is ALWAYS missing – that we are in Tyria on which dragons are real and deadly threat, that humanity is fighting for survival, that other races are enduring dragon corruption.
Instead “baaash the dragon, baash the dragon, bla bla bla bla”. We have Karka, we have pirates (yarr!), we have Flame Legion and Dredge, we have Zephyrites, we have Kiel, we had Evon. We are full of everything but it’s like different road on the crossroad which is distant from the road we were taking.
Why even one trailer didn’t show Scarlet, invasions, dredge, Karka? It’s always been dragons. Dragons with the power of enslaving all. Instead we have miss pseudo-genius aka “diediediediediediediedie”. And pirates (yarr!).
It’s High Fantasy game in Crapsack World aaaaaand it just don’t works out. Flame and Frost had good idea but presentation wasn’t immersive enough. I dare to say that Southsun Cove living story was darkest part so far. People forced to work after signing unfair contracts, powerless law keepers, and to all of that antihero/antivillain commanding giant Krakas.
They definitely need to have a better show of tragedy and drama in game. They don’t necessarily have to show anything too violent and stuff, but they could definitely allude to it more often; not everyone reads the forums and shorts they put on the web, so in game stuff often comes across as a little too light-hearted for some.
It’s really too bad the content in game doesn’t do the back stories any amount of (great) justice whatsoever.
Having some fun and goofy stuff is fine here and there, but personally I have always hated comedies and have a take a keen interest in tragedy. You need to strike an appropriate balance to achieve a good flow of energy; not just have it all rainbows and sunshine all the time.
As I’ve said in another post:
The game tells one thing and shows completely another.
Says: World in peril, Shows: Partying. There’s nothing to support that Tyria is in danger.
Says: Humanity on verge of extinction, Shows: few centaur attacks here and there. Besides humans have exactly the same everything as other races – big capital, smaller towns. And the rest isn’t supposedly on the edge…
Says: invasions, Shows: Mobs teleporting in swamps doing nothing.
Says: Dragons awoke. Shows: Zhaitan. That’s a dragon, not dragons.
Presentation is horrible. We have beautiful festivals full of details, but one important detail is ALWAYS missing – that we are in Tyria on which dragons are real and deadly threat, that humanity is fighting for survival, that other races are enduring dragon corruption.
Instead “baaash the dragon, baash the dragon, bla bla bla bla”. We have Karka, we have pirates (yarr!), we have Flame Legion and Dredge, we have Zephyrites, we have Kiel, we had Evon. We are full of everything but it’s like different road on the crossroad which is distant from the road we were taking.
Why even one trailer didn’t show Scarlet, invasions, dredge, Karka? It’s always been dragons. Dragons with the power of enslaving all. Instead we have miss pseudo-genius aka “diediediediediediediedie”. And pirates (yarr!).
I think you have a very selective way of thinking about what’s in the game.
I main Ele and Necro, though I have an alt of each profession at level 80. How to Condi Reaper on a budget
Everything I say is only in reference to PvE and WvW.
I don’t mind colorfull mobs and humour but please Anet when something is dramatic, make it so !
The only time i felt sad in PVE is when all my NPC team dies and become undeads while Trahearne is trying to revive the life in Orr. I like them beacause they made jokes, we fought together and beacause they died protecting us. And now they come back as undead with the music “fear not this night” starting to play. That was dramatic !
Suggestion 1 :
When “ugly pink and fluffy” mobs slaughter a region, kill the NPC or make them leave the region ! WTF is doing a karma vendor in the region while it’s beeing overwhelmed by “ugly light blue and smiling” mobs ?
And if the invasion is successful (the player lose) then disable several towns and NPC in the region and turn some building to ashes.
Suggestion 2 :
Set scouting quests where the players must search for any dragon activity around the different regions, remain vigilant and report any anormal activity to prevent a real invasion.
the major problem is the inconsistency when it comes to dramatic/sad/epic moments. Just yesterday I progressed in the Sylvari storyline and was actually surprised by the moving story of the first death in the species and the tale of betrayal. Then you seek out the grown up squire who betrayed the firstborn, seems to have become a vile brooding drunkard. Then suddenly the whole encounter is about an illusion potion making me see blobs and colours and some funny Asuran announcer. Mood set and destroyed by an overuse of comic relief. Happens quite often in this game.
As I’ve said in another post:
The game tells one thing and shows completely another.
Says: World in peril, Shows: Partying. There’s nothing to support that Tyria is in danger.
Says: Humanity on verge of extinction, Shows: few centaur attacks here and there. Besides humans have exactly the same everything as other races – big capital, smaller towns. And the rest isn’t supposedly on the edge…
Says: invasions, Shows: Mobs teleporting in swamps doing nothing.
Says: Dragons awoke. Shows: Zhaitan. That’s a dragon, not dragons.
Presentation is horrible. We have beautiful festivals full of details, but one important detail is ALWAYS missing – that we are in Tyria on which dragons are real and deadly threat, that humanity is fighting for survival, that other races are enduring dragon corruption.
Instead “baaash the dragon, baash the dragon, bla bla bla bla”. We have Karka, we have pirates (yarr!), we have Flame Legion and Dredge, we have Zephyrites, we have Kiel, we had Evon. We are full of everything but it’s like different road on the crossroad which is distant from the road we were taking.
Why even one trailer didn’t show Scarlet, invasions, dredge, Karka? It’s always been dragons. Dragons with the power of enslaving all. Instead we have miss pseudo-genius aka “diediediediediediediedie”. And pirates (yarr!).
Agreed entirely. What we’re told does not just match up to what we see.
Divinity’s Reach should be full of refugees and slums, under military rule. Instead it’s a gleaming white city where they can afford to build a pavilion for a speech and a celebration, and the human lands in general should be more poverty stricken and bleak, in comparison to a maybe more thriving Charr community.
I think many people misinterpret this topic. They tend to suggest a contrast between the playful light stuff and adult mindlessness. It’s simply not true.
Dark tones add to the realism. The more realism there is, the more I (and others) are going to be able to take things seriously. It makes a huge difference in the story to have those realistic themes. It amplifies the emotion we feel and therefor builds a stronger connection with the overall lore and theme of the game.
Right now I feel severely disconnected, simply because I can’t take anything as being serious.
I don’t mind colorfull mobs and humour but please Anet when something is dramatic, make it so !
This.
It’s ok to have some silly stuff in a game, in fact, you need it to balance things out a bit. But when it’s supposed to be dark or threatening, it just isn’t. That’s no good.
It’s a game forum. The truth is not to be found here.
Southsun is so empty again!