Guild Wars 2

I figured the end of the personal story was so bad because it was rushed.

Now I realise it’s just Anet showing contempt for anyone who bought their product expecting anything but a run of the mill mmo.

Never understood the Trahearne hate. Or the Logan hate for that matter. They’re cool people. Ya’ll are a weird lot.

At the end of the day because the face of the story follows after Trahearne, the heroes of Destiny’s Edge and the development of the world story as a whole, my personal character is free to pursue any path I wish.

The story is a very grandiose, global in scale. The world is ‘evolving’, alive and you’re both witness to that and an active participant.

Your character has a staring role in that. It very much involves you, you’re the catalyst to all of these things happening.

For that reason I’m not locked into ‘teh star you win its all over’, though I most certainly am the character of the hour in any instance throughout.

The story is awesome and I’m glad I’m not shoehorned into being ‘teh star’ of it. Yet the way it’s set up very much makes me an integral part of it, it doesn’t work without me.

I like it open ended like that, many people do, but I suppose many people also like to be told ‘YOU ARE WINNER THE END GO HOME’.

Eh.

You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Personally, I want a replay option like in GW1 where I can relive all the cutscenes anytime I want without making a new character.

Well, I was going to bash Trahearne and defend Kormir (hey, she at least had flaws that made her human, while Trahearne’s flaws make him more boring than a robot), but that can wait. That’s because there is one thing I haven’t seen complained about and that’s the lack of personality in our enemies.

There are some more interesting ones you get to meet and defeat throughout the game, but Zhaitan and the other dragons? No personality anywhere that I’ve seen. Although honestly, I haven’t even bothered to play the story to the end because I just got bored with Trahearne and the boring bunch of unending undead.

Much like Trahearne, I find the concept of Zhaitan a lot more interesting than what happens and what we encounter of the Risen. Given they’re zombies of highly varying intelligence . . . well, it’s to be expected they’re not that interesting to me. I’ve never found zombies interesting.

On the other hand, Kralk and Jormag with their minions? I have much more interest in them. The Sons of Svanir and the Icebrood are an intriguing thing to deal with because they retain their intelligence despite being corrupted. And Kralk’s minions intrigue me more than the Risen because they are clearly . . .

Look, the Risen are slightly adapted dead bodies. In some cases of fresh Risen, not even that. The Sons of Svanir mostly look normal, just pale and frosty. Even the Icebrood are just further down the path of “enhancement” while retaining a basic definition of what they were.

The Branded? Kralk overwrote and completely altered what they were.

Also, the Destroyers are very interesting if only because I’m wondering why Primordius is sticking to those after they failed miserably.

Actually i would prefer they let you vote for the pact leader from one of the order, then make Trahearne to be the pact councilor, while the player become the field commander. This make a lot more sense to me.

We hate him because for anyone not playing sylvari he popped out of nowhere halfway through our story and then became centre spotlight forcing us into the position of sword lackey. never mind the choices we made about the characters we recruit, never mind what personality we chose for our characters (which never made a difference anyway), never mind the deadpan voice acting, consistent whining and his gall at stealing caladbolg from us. not to mention the fact that hes clearly just a mary sue character. I think in future they should rename personal story to trahearnes story because really? I sure as hell didnt feel like it was my story seeing as none of my choices mattered (it particularly annoyed me that none of the choices you made in character creation did anything beyond the first few missions).

Kharegim.2846:

We hate him because for anyone not playing sylvari he popped out of nowhere halfway through our story and then became centre spotlight forcing us into the position of sword lackey. never mind the choices we made about the characters we recruit, never mind what personality we chose for our characters (which never made a difference anyway), never mind the deadpan voice acting, consistent whining and his gall at stealing caladbolg from us. not to mention the fact that hes clearly just a mary sue character. I think in future they should rename personal story to trahearnes story because really? I sure as hell didnt feel like it was my story seeing as none of my choices mattered (it particularly annoyed me that none of the choices you made in character creation did anything beyond the first few missions).

TBH i was GLAD to get rid of caladbolg, the mission where i actually wielded it SO didn’t fit the way my character was set up and all in traits etc, making that encounter unnecessarily more difficult than my normal weapons would have had

My problem with Trehearne is how badly written he is.

I was doing the early Trehearne missions on my Guardian, and it reminded me of how much I hate the way that he was added. From the very first mission you meet him, he has diarrhea of the mouth and cannot stop spouting exposition and whining.

“A Light in the Darkness” is, for me, the perfect example of this. Instead of moving forward with the story, we have to stop dead in our tracks to talk to the Pale Tree, who spends most of the quest telling Trehearne how important he is and how he must take up this legendary sword that only sylvari characters know a thing about. And Trehearne himself spouts a massive exposition that basically summarizes GW Prophecies in the most revisionist way possible. And what frustrates me most is that this vision sequence has some GOOD stuff in it, but it’s all drowning in the terrible exposition and sudden shift of worldly importance onto this guy that we literally just met a few quests ago.

oh my 5 year old nice loves this character, espacially his voice

The voice acting is terrible.
I hate the way he looks.
He bosses you around most of the time instead of helping…. and when he does help you need to practically hold hands with him to have the mission update properly (otherwise he just stands there doing nothing when he should be advancing toward the objective).
I don’t like that he plays a bigger role in the story than Destiny’s Edge.
I think that his sword, Saladballs, or whatever its called is stupid, and every time I hear him say its name I just shake my head in shame.

But the biggest reason I don’t like Treahearne….
I honestly thought he was going to end up being like Vizier Khilbron/The Lich from GW1
The guy in guild wars 1 who you thought was helping you was actually PLOT TWIST: The end boss of the game!
Treahearne fit the bill pretty well…. he was a powerful Necromancer, he always happened to be there when stuff went down (The battle for Claw Island, etc.)
…but he was just some scrub.

I WAS REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO KILLING HIM.
THAT WOULD HAVE MADE THE GAME SO MUCH MORE SATISFYING!

I always expect him to have a tardis. He is like Tyrias Doctor Who. I think its the hair.

Even still, that sword rightfully belongs to me because I would throw colorful parties with it. Death parties.

Also he hacks, necro can’t use greatsword and is only able to use one elite golem.

-> It could also be the result of being a timelord though.

Anyhoo, I preferred Rowan Atkinson or David Tennant as The Doctor. The hair looks better on Tennant than Trahearne. I guess Trahearne DID heal something though so bonus points. If he works hard he can come out of the negatives.. for having the shiny sword. I WANTED THE SHINY. I bet I could sell it on the TP for alot of monies.

The real thing we are all thinking is: Why can’t we just follow Kudu around instead. He has a cool lab, lots of experiments, was trying to take over a dragon like someone else did. He even sounds cool and is halfway competent at breaking stuff. He even made a boss that is basically every Resident Evil boss ever rolled into one. Kudu wins!

Kudu or David Tennant or Rowan Atkinson > Trahearne.

When I ran COE, I always thought: Hey, this Kudu guy is pretty cool.
He even gives me stuff to loot and destroy and this lab is fun!

Why didn’t Trahearne ever give us stuff to wreck? Friends don’t let friends run out of stuff to hit with their sword.

Hm… where to start… I hate how “This is my story!” turns to “This is Trahearne’s story, but he does listen to me now and then.”

I hate his bland voice like he’s busy reading out the EULA instead of being this awe inspiring leader that supposedly everyone loves having in charge.

I hate how much he loves the sound of his voice. Skip to the end? Well guess what! He can talk to you while you walk around, until his speech bubbles block up your screen.

I hate how convenient he is. We have three orders that hate each other, and what does it take to get them to work together? Oh, well, we have this talking tree that just so happens to be handy. Let’s follow him! Sure, all he has on his resume is he’s unnaturally obsessed with Orr to the point that you should be suspecting he’s actually working for Zhaitan, but, nope! He’s the leader now.

I hate how buddy buddy he is with me. Everywhere I go, he’s there, waiting. Watching. Always with that creepy smile. … kitten stalker.

He’s a Mary Sue! He’s oh so perfect, everyone loves him, even though he’s oh so worried about doing everything right…

He’s a tad kitten arrogant. Everything Zhaitan does, Trahearne thinks it has to deal with him personally.

He replaces everything. What? You found out where your parents are buried, and might be interested in finding out more? Trahearne! What? Your mentor just had something horrible happen to him or her, and you might want to- Trahearne!! So you might actually be interested in w- OH LOOK IT’S TRAHEARNE!!

I started off liking the story missions, but… once the Trahearne script kicked in, and really, it reads like bad fanfiction, I found myself cringing at the thought of doing yet another story mission, and just wanted to get it over and done with so that I’d never have to go through that absolute torture ever again.

If a picture paints a thousand words, etc.

First picture: Trahearne when we first meet him.
Second picture: Trahearne at the end of our Personal Story.

I dont think the main char being the sidekick is the problem, guys really, there are thousands of players doing the personal storyline and we all expect it to be all about us?

I always found the idea of that kinda weird, same in SWTOR XD

The problem is how poorly the characters we deal with are written, if traherneatree was actually a very intresting character with good dialog and did great things, i wouldnt mind it at all, it would be great to be able to play alongside a character that would be a legend in times to come.

Buuut that is just the case and that is why it sucks :P

Yeah I think if Trahearne had been better-written and introduced into the story more subtly than “hey here’s this guy ok he’s the main focus of the story now kill stuff for him kthxbai” I wouldn’t mind the overall dynamic of the story. I don’t care if I’m the main character or not, but I don’t want to all of a sudden be saddled with a whiny bush who gets all the glory while I do all the work. I know that Trahearne is not unique in his uselessness, most story quest NPCs are, but he is unique in how much of a big deal is made of him.

Tybalt is the only story character I bonded with emotionally. I’m not sure why, because he occupies a similar niche in the plot as his Priory and Vigil counterparts. It’s probably in the little things that add to his characterization which makes him a really charming and engaging companion. His thing with apples first felt a little like a thinly-veiled attempt at quirkiness, but I have to say I really grew to like that aspect of him.

The writing in this game overall is a surprisingly mixed bag. Sometimes I’m running through town and notice some environmental NPC chatter that’s really amusing or adds to the feeling of vitality in the town (like the kids playing behind the bank in Lion’s Arch or the charrs talking about Meatoberfest in that town in Diessa) and I’m really impressed. And then I go to play the story mission some and it’s mostly just a huge drag after all character story lines merge into the Pact arc (I personally was not a fan of the Priory arc either but it wasn’t quite as bad as the Pact arc).

I know that not everyone has the same tastes and various characters will resonate more with some people than with others, but I do believe that a well-written character is something that everyone can appreciate, as evidenced by the popularity of BioWare games.

I dislike Trahearne because I show up for every mission dressed for battle, and he looks like he just woke up and rolled out of bed.

If you’re going to be the leader, at least pretend to make an effort to look inspiring. Why oh why did the designers not make him look cooler? Laugh all you want at Logan, at least he looks like he can handle himself.

I would sacrifice trahearne in half a second if I got tybalt back end of story

Qwyksylver Vyqtunos.6312:

I would sacrifice trahearne in half a second if I got tybalt back end of story

And I would sacrifice Tybalt in the time it took to draw back a bowstring if someone said: “If you give me Tybalt, you can have Pyre again.”

TheBlackLeech.9360:

But the biggest reason I don’t like Treahearne….
I honestly thought he was going to end up being like Vizier Khilbron/The Lich from GW1
The guy in guild wars 1 who you thought was helping you was actually PLOT TWIST: The end boss of the game!
Treahearne fit the bill pretty well…. he was a powerful Necromancer, he always happened to be there when stuff went down (The battle for Claw Island, etc.)
…but he was just some scrub.

I WAS REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO KILLING HIM.
THAT WOULD HAVE MADE THE GAME SO MUCH MORE SATISFYING!

He wouldn’t exactly have to be the final boss, but penultimate? That’d work.
Like Rurik.
People hated Rurik (but mostly because he always got killed because his AI was terrible, not like why they hate Kormir and Trahearne because they are terrible characters) and then lo and behold you get to kill his undead self right before the final boss of Prophecies.
This is the proper solution for Trahearne. Too bad it’s too late to fix it.

pixieish.9627:

Sure, all he has on his resume is he’s unnaturally obsessed with Orr to the point that you should be suspecting he’s actually working for Zhaitan

And he’s a Sylvari. Member of a new race that other races of Tyria don’t seem to treat seriously yet. And he’s pushed into that position by the Pale Tree, which, as we know, is a great authority not only for humans and norn, but also charr and asura…

Seriously, why would a charr, with their known current attitude towards mysticism, visions and mysterious entities trying to manipulate them, agree to the Pale Tree’s “vision quest”? Why would it even matter for anyone besides a sylvari (and maybe a Norn)?

Frankly, the only reason why anyone would agree with naming Trahaerne a leader of the pact would be to make him a figurehead nobody’ll be listening to anyway.

Your ‘personal story’ well and truly stops being your personal story when this bozo shows up. The rest of the campaign becomes ‘The Trahearne Show, featuring [insert subject name here]’. Simple as that.

His negative features wouldn’t be nearly as stark if he didn’t usurp your storyline from you.

He over shadows the player in their own Personal Story to the point it feels like Trahearnes Personal Story, hes Dull, Depressing, comes across as Evil and is terribly useless right through the game…

Whats not to hate about him?

Two words “Craw Island”

So I looked up who voices him and who voices Forgal. Because I hit his introduction and went “I know that voice”.

I can see why people would want the Colonel/Uncle Max backing them.

I don’t mind the PC being second-in-command to Trahhearne, or him having a fancy sword. Also his accent is not much different to my own (as a middle-class Englishman).

However, I DO mind that he is incredibly boring and personality-free, and has a very boring visual design. Especially compared to many other NPCs. He should be unique at least (if he is, I can’t tell – most other Sylvari are far more memorable).

Tachenon.5270:

If a picture paints a thousand words, etc.

First picture: Trahearne when we first meet him.
Second picture: Trahearne at the end of our Personal Story.

LOL

Kormir 2.0

Not much else needs to be said. At least he didn’t become a friggin’ God after we did all the work… not to mention 90% of NPCs in your personal story are completely useless and you are doing ALL the killing, healing, etc.

He’s so negative, always saying “I predict this will not end well”. A great leadership quality this is not.

Tomkatt.1684:

I finally leveled my main through to 80 and through the story and…well, Trahearne is freaking awesome. I never felt overshadowed by him, more like partners. Throughout the plot it was obvious that we saw our development alongside Trahearne’s own growth.

I dunno, not ranting or anything, I just don’t get all the hate. Is it envy for that wicked greatsword he’s got or something? He’s pretty cool, IMO (but yeah, dat sword).

Trahearnes constant waffle is what puts me off him, if I hear “Its dropped poison stay away from it” one more time I will turn his cabbage head into coleslaw.

Almost makes me miss Togo and Mehnlo

jesterchaos.5907:

Tomkatt.1684:

I finally leveled my main through to 80 and through the story and…well, Trahearne is freaking awesome. I never felt overshadowed by him, more like partners. Throughout the plot it was obvious that we saw our development alongside Trahearne’s own growth.

I dunno, not ranting or anything, I just don’t get all the hate. Is it envy for that wicked greatsword he’s got or something? He’s pretty cool, IMO (but yeah, dat sword).

Trahearnes constant waffle is what puts me off him, if I hear “Its dropped poison stay away from it” one more time I will turn his cabbage head into coleslaw.

Almost makes me miss Togo and Mehnlo

mmmmm, that moment when I realized I hated him more than I’d ever hated Togo or Mehnlo, and I really hated that pair. Those two soured the entirety of Factions for me.

It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why I hate him though. The voice was fine, the acting may not have been perfect but it wasn’t exactly horrible either, his dialogue….some wasn’t bad, pretty standard fantasy fare, though some was awful.
I think maybe I don’t hate him as much as hate the people who wrote this drivel, and he just happens to be the embodiment of their work.
That sounds really mean, but as someone who writes fantasy I can’t help but take offense at such poor craftsmanship. Now you can argue I don’t know the circumstances, maybe they didn’t have a lot of time and so on and so forth.
But the Sylvari Mentor, Seiren, was far far better. Both in terms of writing and acting.
Her character and personality was far better defined, her lines really fit into that framework.
And from what I hear of the other mentors they also got a lot of love.

Which makes
the fact that they killed the mentors off in such a cheap-shot/hack manner so much more irritating/confusing. Maybe they felt the mentor might...hijack the personal story? If so that's ironically hilarious. I mean, at that point they'd already gone from "mentor" to "partner" anyway. Had I been writing the story *Trehearne* would have died at Claw Island and the mentor would have been the one with you through the end (minor continuity errors fixed of course), done like that it wouldn't have felt so bad having the mentor be Marshal and you Field Marshal, because you were partners, instead of becoming some random dudes lackey. IMO.

Spoiler! Trahearne is actually Vizier Khilbron in disguise. Quite sneaky of him to take advantage of a new race.

I like Trahearne, I just don’t trust the guy. Smarmy little eggplant necromancer, spends his entire life in/around Orr, handed a sword of immense power, cures the corruption of Orr and walks away unscathed?

I don’t think so!

Here’s to hoping he gets turned into the next big baddie we get to chop down!

THe world of gamers is pretty egocentric. Every game you pick up the gamer is in the center. Anything that puts you off centre is bad.

That’s all what the hate is to me.

The story of Trahearne is one of destiny, he has to cleanse Orr, ANd cleansing orr will directly lead you to your objective, which is to kill Zaithan. Youre a slayer, an adventurer, you dont have time to think up strategies or put up rituals. Yo have to follow trahearne and the pact around for the greater good. Trahearne isn’t a good leader, even the orders dont really trust him. But he’s the expert, he knows Orr better than anyone else.

This is what I like about the guild wars story really. I never wouldve taken the gods power at the end of Nightfall either, and Kormir had nothing to lose. I would have pushed her into it myself if that wouldve fixed the world.

In either case the GW games never put you really in the centre, which is why there’s so much hate. NPCs play such a big part in the stories of either games. I like that, it makes much more sense to me that way. It gives the story consistancy, rather than giving some random dude who happens to be good at killing thngs the biggest prize.

In GW2 We are the general and Trahearne was the leader. That’s how it should be, because I wouldn’t have seen it the other way around. That would make for the most generic story ever.

That’s not exactly the problem, for many it’s not that they weren’t the head honcho, it’s that the guy who becomes head honcho comes out of left field for most players, and it feels like he hijacks the story. If everyone had met him earlier on instead of just the Sylvari ones maybe it wouldn’t have come across the way it did.

GummiBear.2756:

Kharegim.2846:

We hate him because for anyone not playing sylvari he popped out of nowhere halfway through our story and then became centre spotlight forcing us into the position of sword lackey. never mind the choices we made about the characters we recruit, never mind what personality we chose for our characters (which never made a difference anyway), never mind the deadpan voice acting, consistent whining and his gall at stealing caladbolg from us. not to mention the fact that hes clearly just a mary sue character. I think in future they should rename personal story to trahearnes story because really? I sure as hell didnt feel like it was my story seeing as none of my choices mattered (it particularly annoyed me that none of the choices you made in character creation did anything beyond the first few missions).

TBH i was GLAD to get rid of caladbolg, the mission where i actually wielded it SO didn’t fit the way my character was set up and all in traits etc, making that encounter unnecessarily more difficult than my normal weapons would have had

If I have any hate for Trahearn, it’s is because of this! Had to go out of my way to get him a sword and then they force me to use it!? My Warrior didn’t mind, but my elementalist didn’t care for it and my Mesmer? Oy, those zombies were a pain and then I had to fight a Lich too!? With slow recharging phantasms I had nothing to shatter. I wish I’d had the clone-on-dodge trait at the time…

But knowing he’ll run into battle with that half-useless sword instead of his own abilities makes me feel he’s not doing all he can to help. Frankly, that he’s fighting at all makes me a bit irritated. He’s a scholar. He studies scrolls and experiments with undead, he’s not a battle mage or a warrior who’s skilled like the 1st born who first wielded that sword. He should be working in the back, showing us how smart he is, planning all my moves (maybe making a few miscalculations along the way that I have to recover from) and overall being a leader, not sticking his nose in fights he obviously barely has the skill to participate in.

The order members we work with fill closer that role of a partner in battle than Trahearn.

He’s a weakling without any perks that a true leader should have. Simply, he’s not likeable. Great, that there’s folk around who find him awesome, sadly 80% from community doesn’t. His voice acting, his character, everything, is bland and horrible. Writing team really messed up this one, and we all know it’s true. He’s like a cheesy character from disney cartoons, except even disney knows how to write better stories. Yes, this is a MMO but it’s also RPG to some extent. In RPG the story should evolve around the player who’s controlling the character, the story should not be about a NPC plant-man, who is utterly disgusting personality etc. People also dislike Logan, because he’s Useless. He has been written as heroic champion, but he simply cannot even fight against criminal gang without your help. He always runs away or avoids battles and makes you to be in charge, but still, he’s a hero and your character is his sidekick. Same with Trahearne, absolutely annoying. I would gladly have followed Tybalt in battle against Zaithan, but not this plant-man.

Real reason: Because it’s popular to.

Not saying there aren’t legitimate grievances (I named my own previously in this thread), but generally the masses are swayed by the loudest opinion, no matter the reason or intelligence behind more quiet, but opposing, opinions. Not that an opinion can’t be both loud and intelligent.

The voice acting for Trahearne is outstanding!

It is a masterful blend of supercilious tone, pendantic droning and neurotic uncertainty.

The actor who voices this distraught, depressed, indecisive analytic scholar deserves accolades for imbuing a lifeless twig with some semblance of tolerable personality.

.

ANet constantly asked: “Is this character memorable?”

The answer is a resounding “yes”.

There was no qualifier in there for enjoyable or loveable. Nor any question about whether the player would EVER want to see the kitten thing again.

I’m no lore expert, but just playing through my Story. I cannot stand his constantly saying , “This won’t end well.” Now I just play with the sound off. He’s such a downer.

I think in order to salvage the personal story, they need to make Trahearne much stronger, and make him utterly destroy all the mobs he comes across.

Yes, it would make the personal story missions too easy.

But something has to be done so the player doesn’t just hate this guy for hijacking the spotlight while basically being worthless in actual fights.

goldenwing.8473:

The voice acting for Trahearne is outstanding!

It is a masterful blend of supercilious tone, pendantic droning and neurotic uncertainty.

The actor who voices this distraught, depressed, indecisive analytic scholar deserves accolades for imbuing a lifeless twig with some semblance of tolerable personality.

.

ANet constantly asked: “Is this character memorable?”

The answer is a resounding “yes”.

There was no qualifier in there for enjoyable or loveable. Nor any question about whether the player would EVER want to see the kitten thing again.

I’m not sure if you are quoting what has been said in the past (by Anet) or what…
but the voice acting is really bad.

When people in the game are having a conversation…. it usually sounds as if they are talking to each-other.

When Trahearne is talking, he is always at least one or more of the following
A) Reading his lines (as if he were giving a speech) instead of having a conversation
B) Actually giving a speech, but sounds more like a robot than a motivational speaker.
C) Emotionless or his voice doesn’t match what feelings he should have.

Though he might change tones of individual words…. the tone of every line of dialogue is always the same. Even when he is supposed to be excited or happy, his celebratory remarks are the same as a person just reading “Yes, we have defeated Zhaitan” instead exclaiming “YES! We’ve defeated Zhaitan!!”

TheBlackLeech.9360:

goldenwing.8473:

The voice acting for Trahearne is outstanding!

It is a masterful blend of supercilious tone, pendantic droning and neurotic uncertainty.

The actor who voices this distraught, depressed, indecisive analytic scholar deserves accolades for imbuing a lifeless twig with some semblance of tolerable personality.

.

ANet constantly asked: “Is this character memorable?”

The answer is a resounding “yes”.

There was no qualifier in there for enjoyable or loveable. Nor any question about whether the player would EVER want to see the kitten thing again.

I’m not sure if you are quoting what has been said in the past (by Anet) or what…
but the voice acting is really bad.

When people in the game are having a conversation…. it usually sounds as if they are talking to each-other.

When Trahearne is talking, he is always at least one or more of the following
A) Reading his lines (as if he were giving a speech) instead of having a conversation
B) Actually giving a speech, but sounds more like a robot than a motivational speaker.
C) Emotionless or his voice doesn’t match what feelings he should have.

Though he might change tones of individual words…. the tone of every line of dialogue is always the same. Even when he is supposed to be excited or happy, his celebratory remarks are the same as a person just reading “Yes, we have defeated Zhaitan” instead exclaiming “YES! We’ve defeated Zhaitan!!”

I read the posted you quoted as sarcasm. I think you two are in agreement.

===

My beef with Trahearne is that his characterization is implausible. Charisma cannot be a hidden attribute. The entire thing about charisma is in the way one deals with and handles other people. If his personality is not outstanding, then at least make him physically attractive? Whatever that means for a plant… But to convince us that a sulking, pessimistic, withering necro that shows negativity at every turn and speaks like the a pre-recorded propaganda broadcast would also be an extremely well-liked leader with bffs all over the world? No amount of suspension of disbelief could make this fantasy sound right.

For comparison, Keiran Thackeray from GW Beyond was also a good-for-nothing (a bit exaggerated) turned charismatic war-leader. That story was a lot more plausible because firstly, the guy likes interacting with people to begin with, secondly, he was motivated (because of Gwen, who was higher ranked than him, but didn’t have the magnetic personally he had), thirdly, he had the player hero who was supposedly the most well-known perfect embodiment of virtue blah blah who was his mentor, and fourthly, the events lead up to giving him the moment to shine in the war in kryta. This all give us much better context and most importantly a believable path, along with real feedback, that a character has indeed transformed. Where is that level of writing in GW2? Honestly I think GW2 is better off without the personal story in it.

Heinel.6548:

My beef with Trahearne is that his characterization is implausible. Charisma cannot be a hidden attribute. The entire thing about charisma is in the way one deals with and handles other people. If his personality is not outstanding, then at least make him physically attractive? Whatever that means for a plant… But to convince us that a sulking, pessimistic, withering necro that shows negativity at every turn and speaks like the a pre-recorded propaganda broadcast would also be an extremely well-liked leader with bffs all over the world? No amount of suspension of disbelief could make this fantasy sound right.

His negativity does get better, as does the pessimism.

I just wish the Sylvari . . . other than the Nightmare Court members . . . had a slightly different voice direction. While I can pick out inflection and emotional responses, they really are subtle.

When dealing with large amounts of people you should not attempt subtle, because there’s a high chance nobody will pick up on it.

I have encountered this problem with voice direction before, mind you, so I know this was probably something that sounded good to the people conceiving it . . . but it fell flat to the audience. And you don’t blame the audience for not getting it, you wonder how you missed it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Heinel.6548:

My beef with Trahearne is that his characterization is implausible. Charisma cannot be a hidden attribute. The entire thing about charisma is in the way one deals with and handles other people. If his personality is not outstanding, then at least make him physically attractive? Whatever that means for a plant… But to convince us that a sulking, pessimistic, withering necro that shows negativity at every turn and speaks like the a pre-recorded propaganda broadcast would also be an extremely well-liked leader with bffs all over the world? No amount of suspension of disbelief could make this fantasy sound right.

His negativity does get better, as does the pessimism.

Show Spoiler

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Trahearne: I must not lose faith. We were so close-closer than ever before.
Trahearne: Once, I thought my Wyld Hunt was futile. This failure would have shattered me.
Trahearne: But now…I see it as a challenge.
Trahearne: I know we can succeed. We must!

I just wish the Sylvari . . . other than the Nightmare Court members . . . had a slightly different voice direction. While I can pick out inflection and emotional responses, they really are subtle.

When dealing with large amounts of people you should not attempt subtle, because there’s a high chance nobody will pick up on it.

I have encountered this problem with voice direction before, mind you, so I know this was probably something that sounded good to the people conceiving it . . . but it fell flat to the audience. And you don’t blame the audience for not getting it, you wonder how you missed it.

wait…. are ALL sylvari supposed to be emotionless?

cuz uhh….. like when the npcs are talking in beginning of Twilight Arbor…. they sound pretty upset about the chick who got eaten by the hounds.

sounds like THEY have emotions….. so why not Trahearne?

Heinel.6548:

For comparison, Keiran Thackeray from GW Beyond was also a good-for-nothing turned charismatic war-leader. That story was a lot more plausible because firstly, the guy likes interacting with people to begin with, secondly, he was motivated (because of Gwen, who was higher ranked than him, but didn’t have the magnetic personally he had), thirdly, he had the player hero who was supposedly the most well-known perfect embodiment of virtue blah blah who was his mentor, and fourthly, the events lead up to giving him the moment to shine in the war in kryta. This all give us much better context and most importantly a believable path, along with real feedback, that a character has indeed transformed. Where is that level of writing in GW2? Honestly I think GW2 is better off without the personal story in it.

Lieutenant Keiran Thackeray had a few things going for him.

- He was introduced one Wintersday as a side-quest which would happen meant to give Gwen some depth. And some humanity aside from "seething frothing ball of anti-charr hatred.

- He was further developed some time later trying to get her to lighten up and go on a picnic. By the way, that quest had the bonus of being very well written as far as his responses to various ideas pitched to him. His responses were witty, and human as the story finished.

- When the War in Kryta popped up, he also had some allies in the “Ebon Falcons” who were interesting as supporting cast. And the writing was of someone who had his heart kicked and was taking his mind off it by just focusing on something else.

- “Hearts of the North” was the capper on this. It was told from Keiran’s perspective so we could see, not just be told, what happened to change him. He was pushed into becoming a leader, and Gwen got to watch through the pool and accept that he became a better man than she gave him credit for.

In short, we were given a lot . . . a lot more with Keiran than with Trahearne. Which has been my major issue with him for a while. He needed more exposure.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

wait…. are ALL sylvari supposed to be emotionless?

cuz uhh….. like when the npcs are talking in beginning of Twilight Arbor…. they sound pretty upset about the chick who got eaten by the hounds.

sounds like THEY have emotions….. so why not Trahearne?

Not emotionless, but higher emotions are largely emulated far as I can reason. Far as I can tell the people at the front are also those who were touched (but not turned) by the Nightmare Court, so it’s possible that’s how Sylvari learn to feel horror.

I don’t have answers though. Far as I can tell, Trahearne’s are just subtly stated. So is Caithe’s most times . . . except about and concerning Faolain.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Heinel.6548:

My beef with Trahearne is that his characterization is implausible. Charisma cannot be a hidden attribute. The entire thing about charisma is in the way one deals with and handles other people. If his personality is not outstanding, then at least make him physically attractive? Whatever that means for a plant… But to convince us that a sulking, pessimistic, withering necro that shows negativity at every turn and speaks like the a pre-recorded propaganda broadcast would also be an extremely well-liked leader with bffs all over the world? No amount of suspension of disbelief could make this fantasy sound right.

His negativity does get better, as does the pessimism.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Trahearne: I must not lose faith. We were so close-closer than ever before.
Trahearne: Once, I thought my Wyld Hunt was futile. This failure would have shattered me.
Trahearne: But now…I see it as a challenge.
Trahearne: I know we can succeed. We must!

I just wish the Sylvari . . . other than the Nightmare Court members . . . had a slightly different voice direction. While I can pick out inflection and emotional responses, they really are subtle.

When dealing with large amounts of people you should not attempt subtle, because there’s a high chance nobody will pick up on it.

I have encountered this problem with voice direction before, mind you, so I know this was probably something that sounded good to the people conceiving it . . . but it fell flat to the audience. And you don’t blame the audience for not getting it, you wonder how you missed it.

I actually do not find those quotes to be motivational at all. It’s just him actively trying to suppress his own nature by verbalizing a supposedly internal monologue. This is indication that he had outside influence and that he’s trying to learn to be not pessimistic, that’s a far cry from suddenly becoming in a position where he could potentially lead a squad, let alone a legion.

And if you actually study real leaders, you’ll find that most of them have strong personality and tend to show strong emotions often, and their ability to infect others with the same emotion is often proportional to their ability to lead others successfully. There are of course exceptions, as strategic leaders tend not to need charisma, but you won’t see them giving motivational speeches, and they usually require a strict hierarchy to already be in place and people have no choice but follow the chain of command. Trahearne is supposed to be the diplomat who united 3 factions that has shown mistrust towards each other for as long as anyone remembers. Trahearne does not actually possess the skills to pull that off.

(But, but the player hero is the one that’s united the 3 factions!) And yet the hero is not the one leading the army. The roles are reversed. The player is supposed to be the war leader, while Trahearne is the scholarly assistant. That is the more plausible situation. But then they can’t have the players taking the major credit in case they need to write it into the game’s canon lore.

Anet basically setup a no-win situation with the way the story goes. There’s not enough supporting characters (well actually, tonnes of characters are written out half way through), and the ending is rushed with little to no substance, by the end the choices didn’t even make sense. I need to choose a fear.. what? Random much?

Hopefully the living stories will not have the same mistakes, and its cast should be more like GW beyond/ winds of change, and not in anyway resembles the mess that is gw2 personal story.

Heinel.6548:

I actually do not find those quotes to be motivational at all. It’s just him actively trying to suppress his own nature by verbalizing a supposedly internal monologue. This is indication that he had outside influence and that he’s trying to learn to be not pessimistic, that’s a far cry from suddenly becoming in a position where he could potentially lead a squad, let alone a legion.

They’re not supposed to be motivational. They’re said to a handful of people and mostly in the presence of your character. This is not him assembling the troops and saying “One day I would have given up this as futile but now I carry on!” . . . this is him saying so in what amounts to a semiprivate location.

And if you actually study real leaders, you’ll find that most of them have strong personality and tend to show strong emotions often, and their ability to infect others with the same emotion is often proportional to their ability to lead others successfully.

Don’t make me Godwin you. I know it’d only prove your point, but I really don’t want to.

There are of course exceptions, as strategic leaders tend not to need charisma, but you won’t see them giving motivational speeches, and they usually require a strict hierarchy to already be in place and people have no choice but follow the chain of command.

No, they need charisma all the more, because their troops do need to trust them to avoid there being an “accident” and “please send us another CO who doesn’t have a rectally-misplaced cranium”. There may be a chain of command, but people don’t fight well for superior officers who can’t instill even a little trust.

Trahearne is supposed to be the diplomat who united 3 factions that has shown mistrust towards each other for as long as anyone remembers. Trahearne does not actually possess the skills to pull that off.

There’s the trick. It’s not just his doing. The Commander, which is to say, you . . . has to get that ball rolling as well by going “no, we need to do this together or not at all”. And that resentment fades from mistrust towards grudging respect the longer the orders fight together and see how well they can reinforce each other.

So it’s not just Marshall Trahearne saying “play nice kids” and them going “okay”. It’s one of the things I really find perplexing is that people seem to think the player character has nothing to do with any of this and it’s all put on Trahearne.

Edit: And just as you edited yours, I posted.

Anet basically setup a no-win situation with the way the story goes. There’s not enough supporting characters, and the ending is rushed. It shows. People complain. Hopefully the living stories will not have the same mistakes, and its cast should be more like GW beyond/ winds of change, and not in anyway resembles the mess that is gw2 personal story.

Yeah, we can agree on that. They were in a no-win scenario, or at least one which was going to be really hard to win. And honestly? I’m expecting the same out of the Living Story.

I’ll put 50 Silver down that no matter what they do with the Living Story characters they revealed, people are going to complain.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’ll put 50 Silver down that no matter what they do with the Living Story characters they revealed, people are going to complain.

The way I see it there are different ways to complain. One could complain that they hate the character or whatever, but a character that has elicited strong responses from the player is a successful one, regardless of whether or not the response are positive or negative.

The complains on Trahearne (and also personal story) is actually not targeted in that way. People complain about technical points of the story, like how characters are developed, how the plot evolves (or not, as the case may be), the voice acting and the bad characterization, these are all problems that we didn’t hear back in GW Beyond and Winds of Change. The only complaints back then was the pacing was slow, but it wasn’t a long story to begin with, and they have to fill a few month’s gap, so there was that. But there was none of this “major character in the story is BS” deal.

Characters were memorable. Story wasn’t too contrived. It had strong lore backing, especially Gwen’s story. Characters didn’t mysteriously disappear (most join your hero line up, so they are true companions). Cameo appearance of Lian, Dragon’s Pedal was flavorful. Blimp’s mystery carried over to GW2. It had romance (not the sylvari “romance” that you see in gw2), war, and more importantly war with historical references, including references from the player’s own experiences. In my view it was a pass, would play again. I would hold Anet to at least that standard, for the living story.

Trahearne sums up why the personal story is awful. I never felt like the personal story was about me, it was about him. He has little to no personality and seems to have a way of soaking up the credit like a sponge.

Cloud.7613:

… and seems to have a way of soaking up the credit like a sponge.

Citation requested.