Guild Wars 2

So far the only story I’ve been involved in is obviously the Story missions.

Where’s the rest??? We get one story?

The last mmo I played was FFXI, there were quest chains literally everywhere, you could play for years and still not be done with side-quests.

On a related note, I think Anet missed a big opportunity for a story with the legendary weapons. Crafting a legendary shouldn’t be just throwing items in the forge, there should be a long story to go with it. Why is the weapon legendary? What’s the story behind it?

The only actual quests are your Personal Story ones. Beyond that, the only other “quests” are the Renown Hearts and the Dynamic Events that occur throughout the world.

I do agree that the Legendary weapons should have some story to go along with them, but I wouldn’t want the quest to require large group content and such, like other MMOs often tie their Legendary weapons to. Not sure how they worked in FFXI, but I imagine they did require large group content to complete.

Um.

The shiny gold hearts and dynamic event chains that pop up on your map.

The heart NPC’s and quiet often the NPC’s around them all have things to say, as do the skill point NPC’s and NPC’s involved in the dynamic event chains.

In fact if you follow an event chain you often get dialog between the NPC’s throughout.

For example, I came across a Norn asking me to collect dwarven relics. I collected said dwarven relics, and he said thank you and ran off.

I didn’t have a quest or anything, but I followed him anyway to see where he came from.

He led me back to a norn house inscribed with the order of whispers icon and proceeded to have an argument with a charr about a particular relic I had collected that had a spell engraved on it that would summon something nasty.

At which point a bandit came running up the road with a bunch of other bandits and began another event fighting the bandits off.

The bandits eventually overwhelmed the NPC’s and captured them.

The bandit leader then read the spell on the relic and summoned a fire imp, the fire imp said it was bound to the stone summit dwarves, and as the bandit was not a dwarf he turned him into a fire imp.

This spawned another event to defeat the transformed bandit.

This is so much more organic and interesting than almost every other MMO “side-quest” that I have ever seen.

If you can’t see the wood from the tree’s, go out and explore.

Those big hearts on the map are basically side quests.

Quest “chains” are replaced with Dynamic events as when completed some will kick off other events nearby.

You also can get hints of things to do by talking with named NPCs. There are ghosts in the graveyards, veterans guarding chests in underground ruins, et. al.

Most of my side quests are ones I come up with myself. There are no resource node or mob spawns that are in an area that can’t be reached (at least that I’ve found). Those trees or mines at the tops of cliffs have lead me on some interesting explorations

Pretty much what everyone else here is saying.

Personal story is your own story on the road to facing Zhaitan.

Renown Hearts are local tasks intended to give people that habitually need a dude with a “!” over his head at a quest hub a place to focus on for things to do.

Dynamic events are the real bread and butter. These are the full on quest replacements that are scattered throughout the maps, often well away from the hearts. To really appreciate the “side quests” aspect of them, stick around an event after it concludes and see how it chains out. I was at one outpost yesterday and stumbled onto an event to protect them from thieving Hyleks. What I didn’t realize at the moment was that that was the start of the “Rikitti” (did I spell that right?) chain, with three more events directly chaining from this one. I was playing with my daughter, it was her first time seeing that chain, we had a blast.

Try following the NPCs next time you do a dynamic event, most of the time the NPCs will talk to each other and start new events.

The story unfolds as you progress in the events.

A side quest is a Quest you choose to do or not. Every yellow heart in other words.

You did ention the Personal Story. It isn’t always the same, the quests do vary a bit depending upon the choices you make at character creation and later (no detail no spolilers )

you mean other than hearts and Storymode Dungeons?DEs. and thats it .

At first I made the same mistake. I wasn’t all that impressed with the heart quests because they all seemed to be “collect/kill/interact with X whatevers” with the only change being you had a few different options and a progress bar instead of a specific number, and I never stuck around long enough to see the DE’s chain (or didn’t know to follow the NPCs when they ran off).

Then I started not only speaking to all the named NPCs (and a lot of the unnamed ones too) but actually following up on what they said. When a norn told me her friend had gone off to rescue hunters in a grawl cave I made a note of which cave and headed off to find her, then there she was with a dynamic event to rescue said hunters.

It doesn’t always lead to a dynamic event, sometimes it’s just some interesting dialogue, or a single veteran enemy, or a chest, or whatever. Not knowing is part of the fun.

Basically they’ve taken out the quest log, NPC’s with a big exclaimation mark over their heads and other things that say “You are now doing a Quest”, but they haven’t taken out the quests.

I copied this from a post of mine in another legendary thread. It doesn’t answer the side-quest bit, the others did that with the hearts/DE’s answer. This is my opinion of what a legendary is. And I would guess, what ANet intended it to be. Sorry it’s long.

“You are supposed to earn that karma because you are a good citizen and did events for good of all Tyrians. You earned those elites because you were there, helping, making Tyria a better place. And the day Zommoros gave you that precursor? He gave it to you because he finally decided you were worthy of something so special.
In everyone’s race to get the coolest best things, you are forgetting what the game is about! Why play it, if not for the game itself?
The problem here is you have a bunch of people saying they are REQUIRED to purchase from the trade post and whatnot, but they aren’t.
The Facts
Legendary’s aren’t required at all, therefore nothing needed for them is required.
You don’t have to buy the stuff from TP, you could farm it yourself.
250 Ori Ore? Farm it.
Precursor? Farm Elites and use the Mystic Forge.
Do your events to get the karma.
Those of you complaining, are all missing the point. The way your SUPPOSED to get a Legendary is with MONTHS of time, effort, and dedication. This means, helping Tyrians in need so you can earn your karma. Fighting the bosses that ravage the world in events and reaping the rewards for elites. Taking your chances with the forge and hoping that either Zommoros or the Six Dieties or the Animals Spirits, or the Pale Tree, or the Eternal Alchemy have finally deemed you worthy. Gathering what the land has provided for you so that you can sell it to other Tyrians so that they may either use it for the battle against the enemy, or so that you can use it to forge things you need.
ANet has already stated Legendary’s were never meant to be something you got in just a few weeks. Now if you work for your Legendary, make it all from your own hard effort, that’s something to be proud of and show off. If you want to take the short cut and buy the stuff, go ahead, but don’t complain about how much it costs, IT’S A SHORTCUT! It’s not going to be cheap.
Will I get a legendary? Someday I hope to. I’m a semi-casual/semi-hardcore player, and I figure in maybe a year of playing I’ll have earned enough karma, and elites, and farmed enough items, to make myself the most beautiful weapon I’ve ever laid eyes on. Until then? I’m going to keep playing.
Legendary’s are a players reward for helping Tyria in it’s endless battle against it’s enemy’s, and when I get mine I’m going to wear it with pride because I will know that I earned it by helping Tyria survive it’s trials and tribulations, that I didn’t take the easy way and buy it.”

Have to say I was surprised by all the people complaining that getting a legendary takes too long.

I’ve been thinking of them as the equivilent of the Tormented weapons in GW1, where you had to either finish an entire campain and then do the elite end-game zone (4 dungeons basically) about 15 times to get one. Alternatively you can buy the precursor item from another player for a huge amount of money, which effectively just means you have a choice of where you farm.

But in either case they were never intended to be easy or quick to get, and I don’t remember ever seeing anyone insist that they should be.

If legendary weapons were required to do certain content, or had such great stats that it was impossible to get into a PVP team without them, then I could understand the frustration. But since they’re completely optional I don’t see a problem. If they were easy to get and the majority could have them within a month of getting to 80 they wouldn’t be legendary.

Basically shows how to get the most out off the Dynamic Events.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Slowing-down-can-change-the-game-completely/first#post444181

Darx.9842:

So far the only story I’ve been involved in is obviously the Story missions.

Where’s the rest??? We get one story?

The last mmo I played was FFXI, there were quest chains literally everywhere, you could play for years and still not be done with side-quests.

On a related note, I think Anet missed a big opportunity for a story with the legendary weapons. Crafting a legendary shouldn’t be just throwing items in the forge, there should be a long story to go with it. Why is the weapon legendary? What’s the story behind it?

I don’t like FFXI, why should GW2 be like that?
I like the way GW2 is, just some more content and it will be a perfect game.

If u prefer FFXI, why dont u go play it? You are free to do what you want. You bought GW2 because you wanted, you play/played GW2 because you want.