Guild Wars 2

See if you can understand what I am trying to say here.

Once upon a time.. I created a sylvari thief. Painstakingly, I selected his ear shape, glow, hair style, eye shape….skin/bark tone, height, weight, body size. I ventured out of the nightmare and into this world called Tyria. I battled a corrupt sylvari who was terrorizing initiates of sorts.

Through my adventures I met other high and noble sylvari, and together we vanquished the world of risen, krait, dragons and disgruntled humans and Charr. Through partnering with organizations such as the Vigil, and battling along side a noble Norn warrior who ultimately sacrifices his life so that my self and injured Lionguard can escape a dragon attack, we press on. We took the fight to Zhaitan after that day. That glorious and heroic day.

Onto the beahces of Orr we stormed. Defeating Mouths and Eyes of Zhaitan, ghouls and champion undead. I slashed my way through armies of risen, conquering temples, defeating giants. Explosions, dying comrades, living comrades still bound together through the might of battle. We press on.

Aboard a mighty skyship, laced with Asuran and Charr ingenuity, we carve our way through Zhaitans forces. Defeating monstrosities and unfathomable foes whose very existance corrupted Orr, that which once was a lush land of the living. We press on.

Clinging to a spire of sorts, we fire cannons, repeatedly at the beast. Until his grip along the spire wilted, and fell to the ground. We smelt his ruin from above. We retreated to our cities. Triumphant. Heroes. Celebrations all around.

As one of the mighty heroes of Tyria suggested… there are more dragons to face, more battles to be fought. But for today, we are victorious.

…

I’ll leave you to continue the story… where did our adventures take us after the focus on personal story and Orr? Where has the story and lore been taken to? What hav ewe been doing compared to everything you just read?

it has been taken to fetch this token and dress me up pretty and mini games

PARTY!

I dare not click on that link while I am at work.

I suspect a rick-roll.

But seriously, after all of that..we have tokens, dress up, and mini games.

what else?

We went home.
There were troubles in our lands as we tended to wounded, repaired what was destroyed, and tried to push back the darkness in our memories.
Vile creatures on a distant island emerged from their deep ocean homes to claim land that was not theirs.
We pushed back, held the line, and still hold to this day.

New dangers erupted in the cold Norn lands and the Charr territories.
Ancient enemies teamed up to wreak havoc and displace families, fahrars, and homes.
Some of those survivors went back home after the chaos, others found supposed opportunity on that wild island we are still holding onto.

Sadly with new opportunities there are moments of deception and betrayal.
We heard the cries for justice and went back to right the wrongs.
From that rose a soldier who does what she can to help the people.

And then we celebrated. After so much happening within our lands we needed to laugh again, remember good times, perhaps cry over lost friends.
Sadly even at a joyous time there is no peace. Pirates who perverted the Pact technology of airships descended to disrupt the celebration.

Friends, old and new, joined together and stopped them, but at the cost of a prominent citizen’s life. Once again we recover and sort out the confusion as now there is an opening to the Captain’s Council. Some people cry out for the merchants to take the stage, while others cheer on a soldier to be in the spotlight.

Either way their test came in the form of a Bazaar brought about by sky nomads. These peculiar people travel to wherever they need, trade, and disappear like smoke. Their history is long and mysterious, deep and cultural but insulated from outsiders.
If either the merchant or the soldier could get them at the table to talk, that would be the deciding factor between who rises.

So the merchant and the soldier looked to us, asked for help once more. They both knew we sweated, bled, and nearly died for all of Tyria. They knew our opinion would have the weight of the world, because we once had the fate of it in our hands.

And we chose. The decision might have split some friends apart, brought some friends back together, or even helped some people understand a stranger. From all of us came the choice that the soldier should be in the vacant seat. The Captain’s Council is now full again. We are more than just loaded weapons pointed at the Dragons. We are peace makers, nation builders, and protectors of dreams.

As these events come to a close all eyes are now upon the human city of Divinity’s Reach. The Queen is hosting a Jubilee to celebrate her power, peace with the Charr, and human tenacity to survive. All the nations will be there from small tribes to prominent families. We can now show off our martial prowess to people that were never there in Orr, never there to fight Jormagg, and also show off to warriors who were there. Maybe we’ll learn something by watching each other or maybe we’ll just revel in our superior skills over comrades.

Quarktastic.1027:

PARTY!

Honestly, I was expecting it would be in the USA or an anthem.

cesmode… after that, don’t you think you’ve deserved a bit of a break? We’re still having to deal with a new pirate faction and things less dramatic than the Elder Dragons, but they’re still there, we know they’re still there, and they know we know they’re still there, so enjoy a bit of less-dramatic “down time”.

But stay frosty… the threats are still out there.

We prevented the total annihilation of the only neutral, free trade, city on the continent from giant creatures awoken in the sea of sorrows whom could have very well been minions of another dragon. Finding them not minions but just manipulated beasts, we thwarted the plans of an environmental terrorist who was trying to stop the Consortium, a shady mercantile organization who initially awakened the creatures and tried to cover up the danger, without regard to collateral damage.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, the Dredge and Flame legion were forming an alliance that left several cities and outposts in ruins. We teamed up with Charr and Norn to mount a counter offensive while getting intel from the Order of Whispers who had infiltrated the enemy ranks. Upon discovering the enemies lair we storm in and destroy their ultimate weapon.

Not ones to take a break after the action when we are needed, our heroes help prevent riots from occurring in Southsun between the refugees from the Molten Alliance conflict and the Consortium who are using them for labor under the guise of sanctuary. Cannoch, the possible anti-hero that was betrayed by and moved against the Consortium in events passed, is once again out to thwart their machinations by destructive means that could cost the lives of innocent refugees. The Lion Guard Ellen Kiel, works with us to stop Cannoch and avert an open war in Southsun…

just in time for the Dragon Festival celebration,

rebranded the Dragon Bash to celebrate future and recent victories over the evil; however, a shadow is cast over the event when one of the ships council is assassinated during the festivities. Logan Thackeray commissions a private investigator, and her blonde cohort with a classy chassis, to look into the assassination so he doesn’t appear to be stepping on the Lionguards toes. We gather information and suspects for Majory and reveal the culprit to be a spy from the pirate band known as “The Aetherblades”. A manhunt occurs for all Aetherblades across Tyria until we finally track them to their hideout and have a final showdown with the assassin Mai Trin and her brute.

We take our share of the pirates loot, shoot down their backup and head back to town, where Magus the Bloody handed grants Kiel an Aetherblade airship as her reward for years of loyal service as a Liongaurd, successes in Southsun, and raid on the Aetherblade hideout. With her new found captainship Magus nominates her for a seat on the captains council. To win she would need to garner the favor of mysterious cloud-dwellers known as the Zephyrites and commit them to a trade agreement. Vying for that same seat and trade deal is the unscrupulous Evon Gnashblade, proprietor of the Black Lion Trading Company. Our heroes decide who wins and are ultimately responsible for the changes to Lions Arch that either of them, directly or indirectly, bring to fruition.

…its all in how you word it.

AcidicVision.5498:

…its all in how you word it.

As a writer this very much is true, you can make the mundane sound awesome if you punch it up enough. Heck, I’ve been assigned that as writing class assignments. However, you still wind up with the little fact it’s still describing in 500 words taking out the trash.

Not to say GW2 is that bad. I don’t write about what my character does aside from the Personal Story because I have more of a desire to write original material rather than derivative . . . and because nobody buy me would care anyway

VOLKON.1290:

cesmode… after that, don’t you think you’ve deserved a bit of a break? We’re still having to deal with a new pirate faction and things less dramatic than the Elder Dragons, but they’re still there, we know they’re still there, and they know we know they’re still there, so enjoy a bit of less-dramatic “down time”.

But stay frosty… the threats are still out there.

No way man. Im a reporting analyst by profession. I write code and number crunch. When i get home, I want to slay dragons. I want to bring giants to their knees. I want to save entire continents from destruction. I want to help those farmers out again by participating in new events.

And “Who can punt the asura off the cliff the farthest” would be a great mini game, but please..oh please ENOUGH! Real content!

Arena net are only focus on living content so they can put RNG boxes more often in the gem store to make $.

After finishing the personal story I continued on with my role as a soldier, cleansing of Orr, killing and slaying at least 10,000 undead.

After that, I returned to my part-time job as a pawn-shop – taking advantage of other players who are too impatient to sell their goods at market prices. Made me pretty rich. I have also consorted with other players and we came up with a guild of sorts – a mutual-fund if you will – and speculated on commodities and items.

Now, I’m a part-time dungeon looter, philantropist as well as a fighter in the Mists for God and Country.

@ Atlas and Acidicvision..

What I described was a summation of levels 1-80..I.E. a condensed cliffnotes version.

While I laud your responses, what you have written is a verbose dramatization of the living stories. Each living story arc, or two-week bit has maybe a sentence or two to describe it..for the entire two weeks. For cutthroat politics, for example, all you need to know was the tooltip in the upper right hand corner saying that Gnashblade and Kiel are vying for a council spot and our vote mattered. Thtas it, thats all we needed to know. Thats all we were really told. We were told 4 or 5 things that they would do if elected. And thats it. Nothing about who they are as characters, past or present, experience as a politician, really WHY we should vote for either of them or why we should care…like..why should I have cared about the zephrytes? And who really are they in the first place? Barely any explanation about all of this, but a two sentence paraphrase every two weeks.

So while I condensed 80 levels of personal story, you expanded a few story arcs that, at the time of their existance in the game, were told in two sentences or less.

Just trying to point out the quality of story then, to what is now. Pointing out the quality of activity then to what is now.

cesmode.4257:

@ Atlas and Acidicvision..

What I described was a summation of levels 1-80..I.E. a condensed cliffnotes version.

While I laud your responses, what you have written is a verbose dramatization of the living stories.

To which I say so? You wanted to know what happened, there you go.

So while I condensed 80 levels of personal story, you expanded a few story arcs that, at the time of their existance in the game, were told in two sentences or less.

Just trying to point out the quality of story then, to what is now. Pointing out the quality of activity then to what is now.

The quality of the personal story was not worth that much energy to be honest.
Here’s a shorter, more honest version, of what we endured:
“Start off with a tutorial, get your mentor killed off, play second fiddle to Salad Kormir”.
I personally don’t care much for the personal story in most parts. I do however like the intent of the living story.

I connected the LS elements together, because they do somewhat go together. They put it together in “two sentences or less” because there’s not a lot of time in between each. So they keep parts of it brief.

I’m not attacking you. Honestly I’m attacking the Personal Story.
Our Hero Proxy wasn’t worth the effort, we kill off this epic sized dragon in a ridiculous mini game. Yet some want that instead of the developing living story that makes me feel like I’m doing something at times or just immersing me into the current situation.

So now people just want to target the next dragon, forget about their homelands, and once you’ve killed off all the dragons what do you have as a goal?

Addendum: To learn more about the zephrytes, just listen to them in conversation or talk with them. They are the Brotherhood of the Dragon in another form. Literally they bring up those old dwarves and how, when they died out, the zephrytes took over their way of life.

Its amazing how people can have polar opposite opinions. I thought the personal story was a good story. The choices you made had little impact. But a good story.

I feel that the living story is so disjointed, unconnected, and if at all very loosely related to eachother.

The Eternal Alchemy computes all kinds good sir.
Originally when the game was released I didn’t mind the Personal Story.
It wasn’t that great, but at least there was a narrative for this game.
Trahearne was boring compared to how ANet pumped up Destiny’s Edge.
So the storytelling wasn’t that compelling to me.

Combine that with the fact that you get ‘dry spells’ of activity all because the next chapter in this story is…..6 levels away and you really need to get going NOW!
The rhythm gets broken right around the middle, but then Orr turns out to be somewhat fun if you count all of Orr as a predungeon to Arah.

However if you don’t, then the dungeon is a sad little minigame at the end and I get so depressed thinking about that.

Furthermore there’s the situation that we can’t do anything with Orr now because it may conflict with the personal story. We can’t kill off the really important characters because we will need them for the Personal Story.

Finally the Personal stories do tend to blur together if I have multiple characters, but that’s the hazard of being an altoholic.

So yes, I really wish the Personal story left off somewhere around the Pact formation and had the living story pick up from there. Even better, I sort of wish the Living Story kicked off without a Personal Story.

Now with the Living Story they did have a rough start, but now things are picking up. There are returning characters like Braham and Rox, along with Kiel; even Gnashblade was presented to us more. Before this election we had, he was just the fancy NPC to me.

So it may seem disjointed to you, but to me it is more like watching several television episodes before a season is done or a few chapters out of a book not yet released.
If we look back after (let’s say) Feb 2014, I think some folks will see that the overall story is starting to shape up.

That’s part of the reason why I wrote up what I had earlier. You tried to present a cliffnotes version of the Personal Story; where as I connected the Living Story chapters (episodes? I don’t know) based on what I’ve seen in game and in wiki.