Guild Wars 2

The designers seem to be investing a lot of storytelling into adventuring NPCs. This would be Braham, Rox, Kiel, Destiny’s Edge, and Trahearne. Does anyone agree with me that this now seems to be a mistake?

The adventurer NPCs are doing tasks like PCs but actually don’t do it very well. Reviving them after every dungeon fight is tiresome and doesn’t fit their story. Players can do dungeons without them and would generally prefer that. The stories of the adventurer NPCs will advance after an instance is completed, by design, and this leads to two common complaints. Players complain that the personal story isn’t about them and complain that NPCs steal the rewards (Kiel, Trahearne). The NPCs don’t actually take any rewards that a player may want, but players do see their work used to advance the storyline of the NPCs. This seems a particular failing for the living story where players get no personal story advancement or status (the design allows new players to join at any point).

Investing time in storytelling for the adventuring NPCs also seems to be leaving us short of storytelling for our enemies.

Previous content isn’t going to be changed now, but are the same problems going to be repeated again with Braham and Rox? These seem to be likeable characters with decent scripting and voice acting, but are they really going to be tagging along in all our dungeons and getting all the story advancement that the players want to see happen to their own characters?

You’re mixing mechanics into their lore story. Having to revive them is due to NPCs being made far weaker than PCs could, so that it’s still a challenge and not just “go afk and let the NPCs solo everything” kind of deal, while simultaneously avoiding the Prophecies and Factions issue of “NPC death=failure.”

Kiel isn’t part of the personal story, so complaining that her story isn’t about them is rather moot. The later personal story is still about you, as while Trahearne’s the one pushing paperwork and ordering the troops, you’re the one who decides how to strike targets mentioned by others (who aren’t Trahearne either), and does the actual striking.

The Living Story is bound to fail, IMO, due to the whole “design allows new players to join at any point” simply because Scarlet now seems to hold a vendetta against the PC for ruining her Clockwork Chaos plans – something that won’t be the case for players starting the story now and in the future. Plus the characters beyond Rox and Braham hold little depth and are nothing more than 5 minute wonders, the story’s full of comedy despite the dark overtones, and even Rox and Braham are a comedy routine (just a better less over-done one than… everyone else but Kiel who’s as bland as watching paint dry on a tan wall).

This seems more properly placed in the Living World forum or the General Discussion forum than the lore forum, IMO.