Guild Wars 2

Why do I have to go to guildwars2.com to read up on some story? I know it is the easiest and less cost effective way to introducing lore but it lacks creativity in presentation.

It is very boring and only a select few enjoy reading a wall of text( my self included on certain circumstances). It is boring because it is detatched from the game itself. More than half of the player base probably doesn’t even go to the website.

Pretty please. Be more creative and try putting the lore in the actual executable file that is Gw2.exe

I’d agree, but I’m not sure this matters considering how god-awful the writing is in this game. At least when it comes to “story” part of the story.

I’d cut the writers some slack. These days it is hard to stay away from cliches because now almost every possible idea in modern civilization has already been used multiple times.

I wouldn’t. Cliches are indicator of neither good nor bad writing, and they’re the least of the problems on display. The ultimate measure of writing is the impact it has on the player, and GW2 only manages it every other moon, and even then only in the form of mild amusement.

I mean, it’s a perfectly valid complaint, but there’s not much to miss. ANet needs better writers more than they need organizing skills.

(Reminds me of a thread from a month ago where people kept coming up with awesome explanations for Quen Jennah’s Jubilee, or at least certainly better ones than what we got.)

They can’t even get the “RPG” part right, and you want them to get lore inside the game…

You’re a funny guy, aren’t ya ?

not quite sure what the OP istalking about the lore is everywhere .Try reading one of those books laying around DR the priory or Malchiors Leap . Many of the personal story elements have lore in them such as in the sanguinary blade where they talk about Dagnar Stonepate or in AC story which is one big loregasim .

My biggest problem with the story is that in GW you had Missions to do that had something to do with the story. Missions also made you group up and get to know the other players. Now the whole story is just you(maybe some friends/guildies). And the stories in GW were epic. If they took the Dungeons and made them like the GW missions, for storyline at least, then it’d be a lot better.

GW1 did the same thing, actually… there was a lot of content detailing Devona and her guild’s travels done as short stories published outside of the game.

I’m not exactly sure WHY Arena.net does it this way… but it’s hardly new, nor are they the only ones to do it.

It’s a severe flaw of most MMORPG’s today.

At least this game doesn’t have quest text. I’d rather read short stories online rather than quest text about why I have to kill 10 rabbits.

I agree. This lore should be present in the game. I should never have to go to the site to read the story.

Xista.7391:

It’s a severe flaw of most MMORPG’s today.

At least this game doesn’t have quest text. I’d rather read short stories online rather than quest text about why I have to kill 10 rabbits.

And the difference is…… ?

Here it’s like :

NPC : “Hey! Someone help! Bad things are attacking over there! Stop them!”

Oh ok, who are they and why are they doing that though?

NPC : “They’re bad people doing bad things and stuff! Stop them!”

Umm, ok.

Kills bad things

NPC : “Mmm I wish he would give me a quilt!”

What?

Atleast quest text (if you choose to read it) tells you nearly everything you need to know.

Knote.2904:

Xista.7391:

It’s a severe flaw of most MMORPG’s today.

At least this game doesn’t have quest text. I’d rather read short stories online rather than quest text about why I have to kill 10 rabbits.

And the difference is…… ?

Here it’s like :

NPC : “Hey! Someone help! Bad things are attacking over there! Stop them!”

Oh ok, who are they and why are they doing that though?

NPC : “They’re bad people doing bad things and stuff! Stop them!”

Umm, ok.

Kills bad things

NPC : “Mmm I wish he would give me a quilt!”

What?

Atleast quest text (if you choose to read it) tells you nearly everything you need to know.

Most quest texts in most games are abyssal and they’re recycled as well. I need wolf pelts because I’m cold is pretty much all you need to know. What I need to know is why, if I’m out saving the world, do I have to set aside my heroic mission so this guy can stay warm. Can’t he go sheer a sheep or something?

Quest text is the excuse devs give you to go do something. Since you need hundreds of quests for a single game, there are precious few that make any difference at all. I almost always read every drop of text in every game I play, but playing Rift, by the time I was halfway to max level I stopped. The quests were the same from zone to zone, with almost nothing to distinguish them. Pick these flowers so I can cure this, kill this animal, so I can have this.

Not exactly mind warping stuff.

I just want some lore where Trahearne gets kicked so hard in his leaves, that he looks like a salad in winter…

Kaiyanwan.8521:

I just want some lore where Trahearne gets kicked so hard in his leaves, that he looks like a salad in winter…

I’ll do ya one better

During one particularly harsh winter Trahearne and a group of pact soldiers were traversing the shiverpeaks when a blizzard struck and they got bogged down . Trahearne was used as kindling the end .

Or even better, they were all starving vegans. Somehow, everyone but Trahearne made it over the shiverpeaks.

You are a living book .
You choose your destiny .
You are a person borned into an unknown world and dont know what lies ahead .
Your story log (or whatever that part on the character sheet is called) documents your past .
You are a a cluess puppet in a book

Chuck Norris will beat ur kitten at the end !!!
(i have read it !)

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

It is very boring and only a select few enjoy reading a wall of text( my self included on certain circumstances). It is boring because it is detatched from the game itself. More than half of the player base probably doesn’t even go to the website.

Pretty please. Be more creative and try putting the lore in the actual executable file that is Gw2.exe

How would it be less ‘boring’ to read that same wall of text from within the game as opposed to from a site?

If it’s posted on the site, at least players can read it whenever it’s convenient for them. why use up your game time when you could read the same story on your phone during your commute home?

more importantly though, there’s actually a fairly huge amount of in-game lore and it’s universally ignored by the player base unless it’s attached to an achievement, and even then very few players take the time to read it.

just view any out-of-game lore/content as free extra stuff.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

I’d cut the writers some slack. These days it is hard to stay away from cliches because now almost every possible idea in modern civilization has already been used multiple times.

Cut the writers some slack? Why are they so dead set on telling this garbage mini stories instead of touching on ALREADY ESTABLISHED GW LORE, you know, from that one game we played for 7 years?

It’s funny that all we’ve gotten is filler between what would be in any other MMO, waiting time for an expansion to touch on the main story. Since they’re apparently not doing an expansion this is what we can expect? There is an insane amount of GW1 lore that hasn’t even finished and it’s all being ignored in favor of living grind, I mean story.

The only actual GW lore they have touched on is a very very brief explanation of the Guild Wars told by Trahearne in your personal story and they butchered the entire elder dragon story. I think people cared more about Death Wing than Zhaitan, pretty terrible because both are horrible.

They need to put the lore into a holodisk and give my Sylvari a Pipboy to read it on.

Much more interesting that way.

Doggie.3184:

They need to put the lore into a holodisk and give my Sylvari a Pipboy to read it on.

Much more interesting that way.

Technically they could just put them in our living stories tab.

Mathias.9657:

Doggie.3184:

They need to put the lore into a holodisk and give my Sylvari a Pipboy to read it on.

Much more interesting that way.

Technically they could just put them in our living stories tab.

Tabs are no fun, I want a pipboy.

Living Story. Theres your lore.

It would be impossible to create cutscenes with as much detail as the short stories, unfortunately, with the budget constraints most MMOs face.

Or more bluntly, do you want even more resources taken away from the actual game in favor of an exposition-heavy cutscene?

Sylv.5324:

It would be impossible to create cutscenes with as much detail as the short stories, unfortunately, with the budget constraints most MMOs face.

Or more bluntly, do you want even more resources taken away from the actual game in favor of an exposition-heavy cutscene?

Resources were taken away from the actual game in favor of Living story. They should have all they need. According to Mike Z, they took the team that developed the game pre-launch and put it into Living Story.

Sylv.5324:

It would be impossible to create cutscenes with as much detail as the short stories, unfortunately, with the budget constraints most MMOs face.

Or more bluntly, do you want even more resources taken away from the actual game in favor of an exposition-heavy cutscene?

Why not, not like the content we get is of any quality. The GW1 cutscenes outshine GW2 by over 9000 and the game was filled with them. Guess it wasn’t so expensive after all considering ANet is much larger now with a way bigger budget…

Vayne.8563:

Knote.2904:

Xista.7391:

It’s a severe flaw of most MMORPG’s today.

At least this game doesn’t have quest text. I’d rather read short stories online rather than quest text about why I have to kill 10 rabbits.

And the difference is…… ?

Here it’s like :

NPC : “Hey! Someone help! Bad things are attacking over there! Stop them!”

Oh ok, who are they and why are they doing that though?

NPC : “They’re bad people doing bad things and stuff! Stop them!”

Umm, ok.

Kills bad things

NPC : “Mmm I wish he would give me a quilt!”

What?

Atleast quest text (if you choose to read it) tells you nearly everything you need to know.

Most quest texts in most games are abyssal and they’re recycled as well. I need wolf pelts because I’m cold is pretty much all you need to know. What I need to know is why, if I’m out saving the world, do I have to set aside my heroic mission so this guy can stay warm. Can’t he go sheer a sheep or something?

Quest text is the excuse devs give you to go do something. Since you need hundreds of quests for a single game, there are precious few that make any difference at all. I almost always read every drop of text in every game I play, but playing Rift, by the time I was halfway to max level I stopped. The quests were the same from zone to zone, with almost nothing to distinguish them. Pick these flowers so I can cure this, kill this animal, so I can have this.

Not exactly mind warping stuff.

Honestly, it’s like you guys pull these examples out of Vanilla WoW or something.

I guess they could do cutscenes and stuff, that would probably be more like what you’re looking for. On a two week release schedule though, that’s probably too much to ask… especially with other concerns. I mean, they’re trying to fix bugs, add content, create living story crap, add skills & items in the shop, add weapon tiers (and eventually armor tiers), add new legendary weapons, all before the end of the year… while still doing holiday stuff. I’d rather have any of those things worked on than a cutscene, along with a number of other features i’d like to see.

Sure! cutscenes would be great, too. But who really cares? You see them once and then never again.

Except cutscenes and dialogues are crap right now… >.>

I agree with Vayne 100%, this isn’t doing it for me. The game is top notch on most aspects, but lore-delivery and storytelling isn’t part of it.

Yes, I know that Anet is currently working on a system which gives us a overview of the living story, but personally I think this just isn’t enough. Writers… what are you doing currently? Almost no dialogues with the Tequatl release. Almost none with this one.

Is it too much to ask for, to get good stories in my mmoRPG? Seriously: get some writers to work on the npc dialogues in the game, please. It seems to me that map-designers who are great at designing maps are writing this dialogues.

There’s no “RPG” in Guild Wars 2.

You’re watching a story unfolds before you, end of the line. After that, it’s all about festivals and attempted murders…which, in a certain way, is kinda nice XD

Machiavel.6042:

There’s no “RPG” in Guild Wars 2.

You’re watching a story unfolds before you, end of the line. After that, it’s all about festivals and attempted murders…which, in a certain way, is kinda nice XD

it’s not all bad though. The bazar of the four winds had great subtle lore delivery and Queens Gauntlet’s storytelling was a small step up, but in the last 2 updates it’s getting worse again. It’s the fluctuations which are driving me nuts. AND the fact that npcs in the existing old zones won’t get updated dialogues.

There was so much potential with the bazaar, it’s saddening.

I don’t really see the Lore behind Queen’s Gauntlet, though…

Anyway, you can only wonder if there’s even a dragon still alive out there. They must have died from old age by now… (that was a joke, for those who can’t take it)

Machiavel.6042:

There’s no “RPG” in Guild Wars 2.

You’re watching a story unfolds before you, end of the line. After that, it’s all about festivals and attempted murders…which, in a certain way, is kinda nice XD

It’s an MMO, make your own plot. It’s not like you’re required to play through any of the personal or living story to begin with unlike GW1.

The short story for Twilight Assault was a preview/trailer and had no game lore as such. Preview material doesn’t need to be in game. The writing was pretty poor though. Captain Magnus was somewhere between a pirate and a management consultant. “Ah Jim lad, lets motivate our co-workers by breaking out the rum rations. If that doesn’t increase productivity we can make them walk the plank.”