To do the story or not
Completion of the personal story is not required. It could have been, but ArenaNet decided to assume that everyone has completed it for the sake of the continued story.
Besides rewards, the only thing you’ll miss out on is access to the commander’s gate in Fort Trinity, which is simply a set of back and forth portals to each Order’s base.
Just keep in mind there are some options and seeing certain stories don’t mean you’ll see all of them, even if you make three humans.
well…. I think there are some traits locked behind story. Unless you got gold and skill points to unlock, you’re forced to do story.
Early story is fairly branched so you will see quite a bit of difference. After claw island even with different choices it is fairly much the same through orr. Most of my characters I stopped at claw island just to get the 1k guild rep. You really don’t need to do the story at all to do other later living story episodes.
Thanx for all the opinions. Rewards and different story line and traits. All seems like good enough reason to continue with the story, just different choices.