Guild Wars 2

Hey all.
I like to talk to you about the story telling, or particulary these 2 person dialogs.
I don’t like it at all, and here’s why:
To me it looks like a cheap theater, with only 2 cheap actors at the same time (I am not a fan of theaters too) and it can hardly pull you into the event and bring you emotions.
Remember the quests in SWTOR? The story telling was AMAZING, you get to see the entire convesration, all the people, how they react and all that. It really made it look authentic (if thats the word).
Here you see only 2 persons talking at the same time, no emotions at all and after the converstation they all just stand there like nothing happened…

I kinda agree. I’d rather see a cinematic where the characters talk, not just two of ‘m. But, the two person dialogeus are easy to follow.
I never play SWTOR so I can’t say anything about the storytelling of the game.

Hate is a strong word used too casually in these forums.
No, I don’t hate the story telling.
I’ve really enjoyed every aspect of this MMO.
Actually I’m glad a group of people got together and made an MMO that fits me like a good pair of jeans.

No, the story telling is not like SW:ToR, GW2 provides much more story actually. In SW:ToR your story was based on your class. There are only 8 classes in SW:ToR….so there is only 8 possible stories. Yes, they are dramatized, but even I got bored and skipped the scenes after awhile.

In GW2 the stories are based on your race, BUT WAIT! It doesn’t stop there. You can make choices in character creation that actually when calculated give you a possibility of 9 different optional story paths per race. There are 5 races and 5×9 = 45 different personal story paths. GW2 has given a mix and match have it your way story path.

As far as animated puppet theater style story telling goes, I have no criticisms here.
I’m sorry you are disappointed, but I’m not.

Our fast food society is so critical of anything that isn’t ‘their way’, the way they imagined it should be. No game developer can please the likes and dislikes of millions of complicated human beings. I say use your imagination and enjoy the game or go play something else.

Its a tool that may be overused in game but I dont hate it. Its use seems best in removing background activity and the activities of other players from distracting from story points and dialog.

When looking and storytelling tools, its always worth considering how much resources it takes to make them. Bioware invested a huge amount of time and money in developing their ingame storytelling mechanic. All games have to manage resources to produce a product. Something else has to get less resources unless you are willing to risk making production costs too much. Personally Im not sure what Id be willing to give up in GW2 to see them develop a Bioware style storytelling tool.

I do think perhaps they overused those dialog windows. In some cases they could have had the conversations play out in the game world or in small cutscenes to better effect. I dont however hate the dialog windows and think they do have a use.

GW2 goes for stylisation rather than realism in many cases, and this is an example of it. Instead of trying to render a complex scene or full cinematic, they don’t even try that and go for a simplified representation instead. It’s the same theory as the ‘animated concept art’ video sequences.

I have no problems with it, but it’s really a personal taste thing, and I can understand some people not liking it.

Natsu Dagneel

I kinda agree. I’d rather see a cinematic where the characters talk, not just two of ‘m. But, the two person dialogeus are easy to follow.

Yes, a cinematic of two people talking for a whole minute. That’s very enjoyable.

I do not mind it. At first it bugged me but thinking on it, it really fits with GW2’s style and it is, imo, a lot better than a cinematic of people just standing around in the background. There’s a lot more dialogue than in GW1, which had actual cinematics for such (if at all), and in GW1 the cinematics with mostly dialogue rather than events had a habit of changing camera angles every third line. I’d rather not have that returned.

As Curuniel said, it’s a personal taste thing. It’s probably not the best option out there, overall, but for GW2 it fits.

The only thing that troubles me is the way the characters’ eyes seem to shift to the middle of the screen during their conversations. It’s most noticeable with my human thief.

Have the Asura invented teleprompters yet?

:)

The way the story is conveyed (two person dialogue) is so tedious and frustrating and I don’t even understand what went down after finishing my personal story. I felt like their train of thought was jumping all over the place with no guidelines and I was just confused – ended up finishing the PS just for the rewards, xp, and the annoying accomplishment of it in itself.

I would very much prefer the traditional GW method of story telling. Vivid, easily understood, and ALWAYS on topic, as well as exciting (rather than two boring, poorly voice acted, characters talk in near monotone). But this change can’t happen, no way, the damage is already done and a change like this would require a brand new formula (aka new game lol).

I’d say "hate" is pretty appropriate when describing the two-person presentation.

I don’t extend that feeling to the story overall. Just that presentation style.

synk.6907:

I’d say “hate” is pretty appropriate when describing the two-person presentation.

I don’t extend that feeling to the story overall. Just that presentation style.

this

Baddestchica.2348:

No, the story telling is not like SW:ToR, GW2 provides much more story actually. In SW:ToR your story was based on your class. There are only 8 classes in SW:ToR….so there is only 8 possible stories. Yes, they are dramatized, but even I got bored and skipped the scenes after awhile.

In GW2 the stories are based on your race, BUT WAIT! It doesn’t stop there. You can make choices in character creation that actually when calculated give you a possibility of 9 different optional story paths per race. There are 5 races and 5×9 = 45 different personal story paths. GW2 has given a mix and match have it your way story path.

While your math is correct, you’ve overlooked one important thing in that comparison. SWTOR has 8 different stories while GW2 has one story, with multiple paths. So, eight versus one. To make it worse for GW2, that one story has been known for quite some time; you go fight dragons. I had no idea that my Consular would be curing Jedi masters from an affliction long forgotten or that my Knight would go on and face the Emperor and lose. Then give it another go and straight out murder that evil mofo.

I like GW1 mission cinematics a LOT better, where you can see the environment and everyone in your party etc. but I wouldn’t say I hate it… it’s just “meh”.

i dont hate it, but i feel it could have been alot better, well just have to see if Anet will improve it in future expansions

I don’t think the current system is very different from what you see from visual novels.

Its more like a case of culture shock.

I don’t like it much in those, either.
This is an immersive, virtual world, not a Japanese handheld game.

Japanese style to do dialogues for the 2D games with big character portraits and everything usually does let you see the field during the most conversations. While GW2 outright puts on overlay during personal stories to convey the important plot points.

Would have prefered GW1 cinematics as well, these dialogs are pretty dull. And ideally with dialog choice embeded into the cinematics.

Mass Effect the clear winner here, and yes I know ME ain’t an MMO.

But they did port the style to SWTOR, and cutscenes in story seem to be one of the things they did right in that game.

i like it the wat its now, but! there indeed have to be better cutscenes , more characters in them not only 2 people talking but when talking to a group you need to see the group in some points of my vigil story line this happends and sometimes it does not.

truth is, it will never satisfy haters or every human being who plays this game just enjoy it while you can^^

At first, I was the same as OP. I didn’t much like the way the story was presented visually. But the more I played, I found the story was very well told (if perhaps a little unemotional at times) and extremely enjoyable. GW2 had the best story I’ve ever seen in an MMO. There are offline games that do it better, I agree, but GW2 is an MMO. An MMO that gives me freedom, and when I play through the storyline it does actually feel like a story I’m in control of, not just being wheeled through.

The story in GW1 was really cool from what I read on the old wiki. But I had to read it there. I always skipped the cutscenes ‘cause I’d get bored. The dialogue is in and out in these cutscenes, and then back to the game. They even give you the option to skip them, and just read the dialogue in the chat box.

TL;DR: GW2 stories are very well told, but not very visually stimulating (which already has a solution).

Skipping the cutscenes and reading them in the chat box is NOT a real solution, it’s a cop out. To me the whole two-person dialogue screen thing is lame, especially when characters are switching out every line or so if there are more than two people talking. The rest of the game is beautiful but I feel like the dialogues are half-assed.