Guild Wars 2

Honestly, at the very least they shouldn’t have robbed Eir of her last victory -ridding the world of Faolin- at least that would have gave her death impact and meaning. But no, Faolin comes back the very next instance… sorry Eir, no hero’s death for you, you have to die in vain. And Faolin should not have been killed off on her first appearence in the first place, there’s so much more they could have done with her, such as the unsteady pact/nightmare court alliance others suggested.

It was just bad story planning… I’d expect more from a story director who worked at Disney…

Gimli.9461:

Okay so I got to the final fight where you go into mordremoth mind or whatever arcane metaphysical thingy magic you thought of to explain away your inability to write stories.

Didn’t beat it, was doing it with a friend and we were doing fine but every time I’d get f’ed by that bug where my glider won’t open. But that’s not the point.

The point is => Do you write this aiming it at 5 year olds? You story is horrible. It’s beyond horrible. Your lore, while rich, within game is non-existant.
Pre-HOT you bragged on twitch how oh watch out for the sylvari conflict (racism, deep issues). Watch out for nightmare court and how they won’t follow mordremoth, and oh boy I expected some extensive story arcs there.

What happens? Oh look, step 1 => Eir dies, Faolain dies. Eir dies why? To give Bram a bow. So god kitten pointless! That removes that Eir-Zojja tension. You could have injured her and still given him the bow while she heals?
Faolain => way worse. Where’s my nightmare court story? Where’s the depth? Where’s Faolain/Caith etc interactions? Where’s other sylvari? How does this affect sylvari as a whole? Do some accept Mordremoth? Some turn to Nightmare? Some turn soundless? Where are small stories?
My biggest fear was I’ll kill mordremoth too soon, and you’ll just declare all sylvari are happy and innocent again. So you don’t have to write /create anything about it. Well looks like that fear’s been realized, unless there’s some bomb after I beat the boss? But even if there is, I’m guessing I won’t get any quality story until LS 3, and even then I’ll be highly skeptical about it.

Most importantly – WHERE ARE THE NPC’s I CAN TALK TO?
You replaced text with Dialogue, but there’s so little of dialogue that I find myself longing for old story ways. I liked old Tyria maps, now I love them. Because there’s just so many npc’s all over with their little day to day stories and you can read it and it’s glorious.

Not only is your story stupid (sorry, but it is), full of gaping holes, and shoddy (oh look Faolain dies, okay, now lets go thru the jungle, oh look Rata Novus lets find their research => oo tension (I’m really upset it’s not a city full of Azura we can talk to btw) => oh look Taimi’s character ‘growth’ (so badly done)? Oh look her golem dead, cry people (kill another thing => JRR Martin much?) Oh look dragons have weakness yay. Very anticlimactic. Oh look lets go rescue logan/zojja. WE gonna bash mordremoth yee! Who cares we don’t know how.

Oh look, we are here. How do we kill it? Oh wait Trahearn is sylvari! Oh wait ‘insert mindnumbing metalomagicalbobbligoodity here noone understands because it makes 0 sense) we think this ’ll work! Lets go try it! Oh look yay it works (except there’s bugs so you don’t kill the thing).

The hell?
I understand you rushed this xpack but seriously, fail. Big fail.

And guess what, I can solve this for you. Introduce LORE system (look at Wildstar lore system). Scatter Journals and pages around not with just 1 sentence in them, bug pages of text. That’s how you get short stories in . That’s how you get that lore in, that depth. You could have told bucket loads of stories about Faolain, her courtiers, Caithe, and god knows who else, just through big kitten stories scattered as journals. No cutscenes needed. Those who hate reading can ignore them. Those who love story and lore will enjoy it immensely and feel there’s some substance to this.

Progression through the jungle to kill the dragon => too fast, zero substance, minimal dialogue. Disappointing.

What you’re not grasping is that the story doesn’t reside solely within the instances. Pay attention to the story in the maps themselves.

Ayrilana.1396:

What you’re not grasping is that the story doesn’t reside solely within the instances. Pay attention to the story in the maps themselves.

And neither did the story of the core game, all the maps, especially Orr had minor to major events that helped advance either the main plot, or small side stories. Yet the core game still had 8 chapters with 8~16 instances a chapter; this expansion however, isn’t even a quarter of that. In GW1, the expansion’s stories matched the size of the core game. Even the prologue, LS S2 was twice as long as the expansion. In all regards, the story was simply too short for an expansion, and thus, vastly underwhelming, and grossly disappointing.

Living Story Season 2 also told a good portion of its story through events, but those events where made mandatory, merged with story instances in a chronological order that flowed beautifully and helped fill in and flush out the story that instances missed. Why could they not have replicated that here? Would that not better fit what you claim they have done?

Point is, yes, events help expand the story, but ‘expand’ and ‘rely upon’ are two different things, and a story that cannot stand alone without the events to tell 75% of it, is a weak story. Simply put, I don’t think the expansion was a bad story necessarily, but it felt hollow, rushed, short, and unfinished(didn’t even have a conclusion), lacking most of the features that they promised would be prominent.

Having thoroughly enjoyed LS S2, I had believed ANet to have made leaps and bounds in their story telling, having greatly improved from the core game and LS S1, and expected HoT to be even better. This was my most highly anticipated feature of this expansion… never have I been more disappointed in ANet.

The thing that bugged me was Trahearne right at the end. It just felt like a sop to all the Trahearne haters who had asked for exactly that sort of thing.

The interaction with Caithe felt awkwardly handled.

Taimi was way too mobile out of her golem. This was a little bit of a disappointment too. I thought that the charr she was speaking to back in the Silverwastes was going to become the archetype for the Scrapper, and leaving her at Rata Novus with a group of Scrappers to help her defend herself would have been more comfortable.

In retrospect the disaspointment regarding the Nightmare Court angle is more of a product of overhype than bad story telling. Had nobody mentioned the Nightmare Court beforehand I would have been quite pleased with that aspect.

The way Eir died seemed to ignore the fact that Eir is at least as important to us as Braham is. The effect on Braham pushed the right emotional buttons, at least when Taimi noticed he’d shaved his hair. They should had Belinda die at that point in a similar way, and it would have worked well.

The encounters were pretty good, the last one would have been extremely satisfying if it weren’t so buggy, but there was too little story to make it feel is big as it should have. Four or so scenes concentrating more on exposition than on battle would have worked wonders.

Having said all that, I still think the story eas OK, it’s just that I only give it a six, when I was hoping for an eight or a nine.

I am in utter disbelief that this topic reigns true on the story of the game.

Guild Wars 1 laid down a rule that your heroes did not die. And here, we have Eir being dead. It felt like a slap in the face.

I am so salty.

couldn´t care less about the story. I finished the story yesterday and skipped every single cutscene, just to get it over with. Don´t even know any of the NPC names.

It started good imo, not on par with some single player experience like Metal Gear Solid, Witcher, Mass Effect etc. but still nice for an MMO.

But at the point where you are in Tangled Depths it feels extremely rushed. There is almost no ending and I can’t imagine that’s all about Mordremoth. He felt underwhelming, I want to battle a huge dragon, not a cave troll. Also there was no real ending, no celebration. I have the feeling he’s not really dead. We’ll see.

SkiTz.4590:

CONTENT thats what makes and breaks MMORPG…..not story mode lol.

Sorry, but you are wrong.

Content is paramount? yes, it is. But there has to be a reason for the content to exist, and the story provides that reason. If the story is weak, there’s no immersion and the mmo turns quickly into an mindless farm. Well, since the gw2 community likes farming so much (as can be seen by the nonstop farm in SW, COF, Orr) you could make a case in that anet catters to its audience….

As for the story, this xpac was ridiculous. It started well with some cool cutscenes, but the whole idea (oh, this unbeatable dragon just destroyed a whole fleet, let’s walk in and kill the bugger by hand!) is incredibly absurd.

Then the story began losing quality with worse cutscenes, rushed parts, zero development of things that had potential (the sylvary and their predicament). I think there was more lore in the trailer than in the whole story.

And then, the main problem, what’s the point of magus falls from now on? Why do mordrem keep attacking verdant brink? Mordremmoth is dead!

The story should have progressed together with our exploration of the maps. I haven’t seen half of dragon’s stand because the story led me directly into mordremmoth’s mind. Now there is a jungle open for exploration and, i guess, mordrem to fight, only there shouldn’t be mordrem left now their master has been defeated. They are making the same mistake they did with Orr…..

SkiTz.4590:

Most of the ppl didn’t buy it to play story mode…….

You seem to confuse I with we.

The only downside i see in hot story is that is short, and being short doesnt allow to elaborate much.
The storytelling itself, instead, was a HUGE step forward..engaging, fast…i very much liked it.

The lore however is there, scattered through maps chain events, sylvari appartied IS there (there are even achievs!) as well all the lore about the maps you pass through…just play them

ChrizZcE.5981:

couldn´t care less about the story. I finished the story yesterday and skipped every single cutscene, just to get it over with. Don´t even know any of the NPC names.

k

I agree with every word OP said

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Ayrilana.1396:

What you’re not grasping is that the story doesn’t reside solely within the instances. Pay attention to the story in the maps themselves.

And neither did the story of the core game, all the maps, especially Orr had minor to major events that helped advance either the main plot, or small side stories. Yet the core game still had 8 chapters with 8~16 instances a chapter; this expansion however, isn’t even a quarter of that. In GW1, the expansion’s stories matched the size of the core game. Even the prologue, LS S2 was twice as long as the expansion. In all regards, the story was simply too short for an expansion, and thus, vastly underwhelming, and grossly disappointing.

Living Story Season 2 also told a good portion of its story through events, but those events where made mandatory, merged with story instances in a chronological order that flowed beautifully and helped fill in and flush out the story that instances missed. Why could they not have replicated that here? Would that not better fit what you claim they have done?

Point is, yes, events help expand the story, but ‘expand’ and ‘rely upon’ are two different things, and a story that cannot stand alone without the events to tell 75% of it, is a weak story. Simply put, I don’t think the expansion was a bad story necessarily, but it felt hollow, rushed, short, and unfinished(didn’t even have a conclusion), lacking most of the features that they promised would be prominent.

Having thoroughly enjoyed LS S2, I had believed ANet to have made leaps and bounds in their story telling, having greatly improved from the core game and LS S1, and expected HoT to be even better. This was my most highly anticipated feature of this expansion… never have I been more disappointed in ANet.

Factions matched the size of Prophecies? You sure?
Nightfall matched the size of Prophecies? You sure?

But wait. Those were standalone campaigns and not expansions. How about taking a look at EotN.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Honestly, at the very least they shouldn’t have robbed Eir of her last victory -ridding the world of Faolin- at least that would have gave her death impact and meaning. But no, Faolin comes back the very next instance… sorry Eir, no hero’s death for you, you have to die in vain. And Faolin should not have been killed off on her first appearence in the first place, there’s so much more they could have done with her, such as the unsteady pact/nightmare court alliance others suggested.

It was just bad story planning… I’d expect more from a story director who worked at Disney…

………..The person who helped make this sorry excuse for a story worked at Disney?
That’s just too awkward to believe.

Ayrilana.1396:

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Ayrilana.1396:

What you’re not grasping is that the story doesn’t reside solely within the instances. Pay attention to the story in the maps themselves.

And neither did the story of the core game, all the maps, especially Orr had minor to major events that helped advance either the main plot, or small side stories. Yet the core game still had 8 chapters with 8~16 instances a chapter; this expansion however, isn’t even a quarter of that. In GW1, the expansion’s stories matched the size of the core game. Even the prologue, LS S2 was twice as long as the expansion. In all regards, the story was simply too short for an expansion, and thus, vastly underwhelming, and grossly disappointing.

Living Story Season 2 also told a good portion of its story through events, but those events where made mandatory, merged with story instances in a chronological order that flowed beautifully and helped fill in and flush out the story that instances missed. Why could they not have replicated that here? Would that not better fit what you claim they have done?

Point is, yes, events help expand the story, but ‘expand’ and ‘rely upon’ are two different things, and a story that cannot stand alone without the events to tell 75% of it, is a weak story. Simply put, I don’t think the expansion was a bad story necessarily, but it felt hollow, rushed, short, and unfinished(didn’t even have a conclusion), lacking most of the features that they promised would be prominent.

Having thoroughly enjoyed LS S2, I had believed ANet to have made leaps and bounds in their story telling, having greatly improved from the core game and LS S1, and expected HoT to be even better. This was my most highly anticipated feature of this expansion… never have I been more disappointed in ANet.

Factions matched the size of Prophecies? You sure?
Nightfall matched the size of Prophecies? You sure?

But wait. Those were standalone campaigns and not expansions. How about taking a look at EotN.

EotN was a rushed xpac and the beginning of the end of GW storytelling. It replaced the actual campaign which was supposed to be Utopia.

The player reviews for EotN were lolsy at best. I dare say not many really care about the elder dragons at all… they are seriously not interesting characters or boss fights, first of all they are way too big so we can only fight their stupid ‘images’.

What people care about are cool & interesting (AND ALREADY DEVELOPED) characters from the story like Palawa Joko, Shiro, all of the Gods like Abbadon which they scrapped in fractals for that horrible failedasuraexperiment#93028492034824 fractal with a crap story.

Honestly so many bad decisions are made in GW2 as far as story goes that it’s really almost unbelievable how much potential they are straight up ignoring. For the love of all that is holy, scrap these stupid dragons and use characters people care about.

We get it, the elder dragons are OP as hell, can we kill at least 3 of them in HoT so you can quicker develop Cantha / Elona?

SkiTz.4590:

Ranlares.2513:

SkiTz.4590:

If you want a good story, single player RPGs are that way ->

Seriously, go play witcher 3, its one of the best story telling and story progression in a game I’ve ever seen.

This is an MMORPG.

Most of the ppl didn’t buy it to play story mode…….

I certainly didn’t make this purchase and expected some amazing, grand story….CONTENT thats what makes and breaks MMORPG…..not story mode lol.

most ppl could care less if the story is disappointing……I for one am glad anet didn’t spend a lot of time and resources into such an unimportant aspect of an expansion….

This is idiotic lol

No, idiotic is what you people expected anet to do, which was spend a lot of time and resources into the story when in fact, its not the most important aspect of an MMORPG expansion….

some of you maybe well invested or care deeply about it…. but don’t call me idiotic when anet seemed to agree with me by not wasting too much resources/time into story….

disagree and bash me all you want, but anet is also saying “we’ll we don’t want to spend too much time and manpower into this part, we would rather focus our time and efforts in other areas of the expansion that is actually going to be played more than once”…..

Also did you ppl just forget about a thing called LIVING STORY?

That is the true STORY mode for this game, which will be continued and back on track in the near future…. not this nonsense personal story crap …

Nah, he was right… this is idiotic. A HUGE majority of Guild Wars fans play the game for the story and the lore. I mean, who the kitten plays a fantasy game like this if not partly or wholly for the story that could be made. (note the COULD). The living story was even worse than the personal stories from both the core GW2 and the expansion. Please, don’t actually waste resources on that crap. THAT IS THE CRAP, that took up so many resources that this expansion received kitten all time and effort.

the topic of the author exaggerated. But he’s right about some kind of textual system with in-game lore. It is not difficult to implement and efficient.

It seems to me that Anet been doing experiments in this direction, because they introduced this gizmo that is a type of book. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zinn's_Study_Guide

Post script: Theres a “side history” told by meta events in 4 maps. Culminating with the pact defeating mouth of mordremoth.

in short, the history told by metas it is:

1-Verdant brink. The pact recovers from the destruction of their area fleet and establishes bases. It has a lot of mini stories here. As the noble Lord or Farren.
2-Auric Basic. The pact, most on this map, being members of Durmand Priory, help defend Tarir against a Mordrem megaassault. again plenty of mini stories and lore.
3-Tangled Depths. The Order of whispers, prepares a big hole to invade the Dragon Stand. Theres much Rata Novam stuff here.
4-Dragon Stand. The pact, mainly vigil members here under Laranthir of Wild, atacks “mouth of mordremoth” their physical form, while Pact commander fight his “mind”.

Roda.7468:

This story was barely presented to us as an intractable out line. It is an absolute shame with how much potential we missed out on. Like, this story needed at least five more chapters after rata novus. The pale tree should’ve recovered by now after her fight with the dragon, and we should’ve gone to her to seek advice. There should’ve been more conflict with the other races and the pale tree, like some attempt to put her on lock down until mordy dies. The kitten “but wait if we kill mordy then the sylvari might all die, even the good ones!” Precedent should’ve been set (instead of it having like three lines of notice in the last instance.) We should’ve had forged a desperate alliance with the nightmare court and soundless. All the while we should be going back to novus to learn more about dragons AND the lost city. NOT “o hey the dragon can be killed!”. “OK let’s go kill him then!” And then you kill him with some last minute solution from Mr mcguffin.

Also because this is a visual medium, why is mordy choosing such a lame an potato-like visage in his own mind fight? He should be an absolute horror when forcing his image upon us. I didn’t feel like I was fighting the elder dragon’s mind. I felt like I was fighting his childhood imaginary friend.

I was hoping to get a lot more lore about the dragons and the jungle and what it means to be sylvari. But unfortunately the story seems to be very much concluded with little room for expansion.

Exactly this..

I was expecting story quality that you mentioned above, since we spent so much time dealing with Scarlet, and know so much about her story background back then.
Then we fight this shallow Modremoth, with shallow Syvari conflicts that occur in ONE map.

The cliff hanger right after the LS2 is so good, and so excited, but turns out to be a COMPLETE WASTE OF POTENTIAL in the end.