Guild Wars 2

I did do a search, didn’t see any threads here with the PC Gamer interview at: http://www.pcgamer.com/guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns-interview/

The main part of that interview I want to look at is this answer from Colin (spoilers).

Now, it’s difficult to know exactly what Colin is getting at here, and I don’t believe he is saying “Re-roll your main as a Sylvari if you want to enjoy HoT.” If that is in any way the design ethos for HoT, there are more alarm bells going off than I can even describe. So, we’ll leave that theory aside.

But it does bring up a central point. HoT will have an obvious focus on Sylvari lore. That’s fine, it makes sense given the plot we know of. But tbh, I’m getting sick of the all-Salad-all the time story. Let me try to give examples (beyond the obvious Trahearne, Scarlet, Caithe, Pale Tree why are all the most influential NPCs Sylvari while we see almost nothing of people like Whitebear, Smodur etcetera?):

ANet decided all races should be involved with HoT, so we had the World Summit. IMHO, it failed miserably because it turned out to be a 10 minute meeting with some pretty weak dialogue. While my character has reason to be coming after Mordremoth with the Pact via the PS and LS1, the Summit felt like a quickly made excuse, rather than a real reason to get everyone else in on Mordremoth, especially the Norn.

Now, I think there are a few reasons for this. Number 1, LS2 felt rushed, like it tried to cover too much story in too few instances. It’s like all the details which made the plot make sense were cut to save time. The World Summit would have benefited a lot from an extra 5 minutes of dialogue, a little back and forth between the assembled characters rather than near boiler plate responses from each of the 4 racial representatives.

Two, and the big one. My main, Hael, is a norn. When she goes to the Summit and Whitebear doesn’t recognize that she is norn, or when Eir won’t talk to her at all after the defence in Pact Assaulted while every one else does, it’s a complete immersion breaker. Why are Logan and the Pale Tree greeting Hael like long lost friends while Eir only gives a casual line? In Hael’s case, Eir is her oldest friend of the entire group, and the one who should naturally be greeting her most warmly.

To be honest, playing through the back half of LS2 felt like the game was constantly twatting me over the head with a stick because I was not playing a Sylvari or at other times a Human. This should absolutely not happen, no matter where the plot’s focus is going.

So my question is then – can we start to get some race separated dialogue back into the game with HoT? The PS before level 50 remains the most compelling bit of story telling in GW2 to date simply because the dialogue was written with each race in mind, rather than trying to make something work word-for-word across all 5.

I’m not talking sweeping changes, but the little details which make the characters and dialogue feel natural and like my main is a norn woman rather than a cardboard cut-out labelled hero.

TL:DR – NPCs need to react more naturally to the player character, and race specific dialogue with slight tweaks for each race is a big part of that (think PS pre level 50 verses after level 50, where your character suddenly talks differently so all races can use the same lines). Little details mean a lot in terms of immersion, and the player should never feel like they are being punished because they aren’t on a Sylvari or Human toon.

They already do. The Durmand Priory, for instance, names Sylvari PCs in one book, but there are books in there that name the other racial PCs too. Destiny’s Edge characters also respond differently if your race is different. I think Taimi went as far as to change dialogue based on class/race.

These things are subtle though. It’s easy to miss them if you don’t go through everything.

As for the focus on Sylvari, Colin said in an interview, and it’s the same argument I’ve been using too, that because the Sylvari is such a young race, not many (if any) games have the opportunity to explore the history behind such a race. Mordremoth is the Sylvari’s main story. After that, there are other Elder Dragons and races that they can focus on.

“bring back” race specific dialogue? it never left. episode 8 still had them.

I know Chapter 1 and Chapter 8 both have unique dialogue for asura, although you might not always be on the direct path. Also, unless you’ve done the instance on an alt, or looked on the wiki page, you might not even know there is a change. Sylvari specific text seems to be much more obvious, though.

Hmm, true. And I was aware that there are still some instances of specific dialogue based on race and/or personal story choices. I’ve played LS2 twice, once on Hael (norn) and once on a human.

I guess then I am asking for more, or for more intelligent use of it. And not just a line modified by a few words each time, but in some cases who is speaking and how should probably change (like when DE comes up to greet your character, every PC is probably most familiar with the one member they’ve known since level 1).

I’m not even certain race specific dialogue as a blanket solution is the exact answer, but the writing does need to flow more naturally considering the story of the player character so far.

I don’t want to harp on this, but the bottom line is playing out LS2 as a norn often felt awkward and like my toon was entirely out of place. That shouldn’t be happening, and is failure in the dialogue writing IMHO.

I agree with you in a sense. I do think the story has focused a little bit too specifically on the Sylvari so far. It makes sense for the story around Mordremoth to involve the Sylvari more exclusively, mostly because it is the progenitor of their race and seeks to control them, but even if we go back to the original story, when the battle was against Zhaitan, the Sylvari still featured predominantly above most other races.

Basically, in the first few years of GW2’s lifespan, Sylvari have been in the limelight and will continue to be so in the expansion it seems, which could pave the way for a Sylvari-centric future for the next two years until another expansion comes.

I really would like to see the other races of Tyria becoming focal points at times as well. I’m sure the Norn will be the focus when Jormag comes into the fray, and the Asura when Primordeus does, but what about humans? They should have actually been a more central focus when we were dealing with Zhaitan and Orr, considering Orr was a human city where the gods once resided. Yet humans kinda just took a back seat to the Sylvari even then, when they should have been front and center, in my opinion.

All-in-all, i just feel like I should have been playing A Sylvari all along, because the story around them is currently much richer than it is for the other races. I don’t think a game like this should honestly ever make you feel left out for not playing a specific race above another, and should treat all players of all races more fairly and equally, but hopefully they’ll all get their time to shine in the future.

I am glad that they at least kept some race specific dialogue options for some of the quests for LS season 2. Like how playing as a human, you seem to be reluctant to give an heirloom of Ascalon over to Rytlock when he wants to use it for a ritual, where as an Asura you hand it over without a second though. However, I would like to see race choices having a bigger impact on your personal story progression and how you interact with NPC’s, to an extent where you feel like there’s a purpose and meaning to your choice beyond simple aesthetic changes.

If the story does shift to focus on the other races’ dragons, then humans might have to deal with Steve/Bubbles as soon as Orr starts/finishes being cleansed.

Or maybe we’ll deal with Steve/Bubbles as a part of another story with the focus on humans being the return of the Six – and whatever calamity that brings with it.

Race specific dialog, as noted by others, still exists. Although I’ve always been a strong believer in more complicated dialog trees, more race specific dialog branches would pretty much be in line with it.

Yeah, I definitely agree with all of you. Cure, I think you cut right to the heart of it – the dialogue trees need to be a bit more complex and deeper to really get an immersive feel. Race specific lines are one part of that, but not the whole.

For example, while race specific dialogue still does exist in LS2, most of it is quite minor. Things like calling Queen Jennah “Your Majesty,” as a human or a more generic title if not. This sort of thing is good, but only really a surface attempt to have things make sense based on who the PC is.

I also want to say again I don’t really have a problem with Sylvari being the feature in HoT, it makes sense given the plot. It was a bit weird that the stuff with Zhaitan also felt that way though, yes. However, even if featuring a certain race because of ties to a certain dragon, other PC races should not feel awkward progressing through the story.

I’ve been playing a Sylvari since the beginning, and it bothers me as well. One of my favorite parts of Guild Wars 1 were the distinct and fleshed out cultures. Shifting the focus to one-note fantasy races was a big issue for me, but the treatment of the Sylvari was the biggest example of this. Here’s this new race, as in, actually new, even in universe. Yet, they’re somehow ingrained in everything. I don’t mind Trahearne as a character, but telling me that a twenty-three year old is the foremost scholar on a faraway land, is really hard to believe. I wouldn’t mind him being the leader of the Pact and doing as much research as he could on Orr to complete his Wyld Hunt, but I don’t buy that he’s going to know more than some old Priory scholar who’s been studying it for eighty years and had ancestors from there. It’s not like Trahearne could have absorbed any knowledge from previous generations of Sylvari.

All of that is why I will forgive them for this expansion though. This expansion not only makes sense to be about Sylvari, but finally came up with an explanation that ties them into the world. They’re no longer just the cool new race that seems to be in everything for no other reason than they want to show off because the design work they put into them.

Hopefully though, it still gives the other races something to do though, and reasons for doing what we do other than because they’re just tagging along (right now the Pact’s fate and the dragon itself are relevant to most, but that will only go so far).