Guild Wars 2

I have a simple question for all here who play the game mostly for its story and worldbuilding.

Do we really want a Game of Thrones style of story?

I am asking, because again and again this show (and books, of course) get thrown in the mix on how the story should be written.

I am aware GoT is all the rage right now. It grasped several generations and is now part of our pop-culture, but is this really what we want?

Isn`t Guild Wars more akin to a Lord of the Rings (another well known fantasy story), with downplayed political backstabbing and more travel, then GoT?

As far as I am aware, GoT is more about the backstabbing politics (like other shows before. Anyone remember Rome, the Tudors, etc.), the developement and “unexpected” of certain Characters over years and (at least in the show) some nudity (but I do not hold them only, but it is a part).

GoT is a highly complex dark fantasy drama, which captures the audience because everyone could die.
It plays with the unexpected.

While these are good traits, Guild Wars is a story of heroes. A story of adventures. A story of exploration.
While there is political stuff going on in the world (and we cannot get around it nowadays), I never thought of it as the big focus (even if it was always present).
Even if it was the start of an adventure, the story itself almost always went to a single goal: “save the world/continent”.

While politics were involved, our character was usually fighting for a greater good and not his personal gain (aside from honor, etc. ).
Guild Wars is a story about doing the right thing and not about some drama. It is about stopping the backstabbing and get everyone to do the right thing in the time in need.

So yeah, I ask you. Do we really want Game of Thrones? Do we want characters dying left and right, just for some character drama?

PS. :I am not talking about Belindas dead here, I am just asking if GoT is the best rolemodel for the story at the moment, ignoring its popularity.

I don’t understand how people are up in arms with Belinda dying and expecting this is the start of more deaths (even though you said it’s not about her, I bet you thought about it since GoT = deaths). How in the world can you start on that path? Just cause one, somewhat insignificant person dies doesn’t mean we’re going down that path with more minor characters. Belinda died, OK we’ll deal with it. There is no need to make it a big issue.

I think you’re taking that GoT comment awhile back a little too seriously. Anet will have their own vision and I’m sure they wouldn’t use GoT as a blueprint because at some point that gets old. Furthermore, as you mentioned, GoT is extremely complex with many viewpoints and conflicts happening across the world. In Tyria, we only stick with our bionics working together. You can’t exactly copy that blueprint since the scale of complexity is very limited in GW2.

Yes, but we still have several people asking for the writers to look at GoT (because of obvious reasons)

Anet even used it some of their responses (in terms regarding to a TV-Show presentation or so, i might be mistaken on the context, though)

My question is simply if we want that direction at in any way?

I knew from the first time she appeared that:

Belinda = Red Shirt

GoTs isn’t at all representative of what GW2 is, but I think the reference is brought up because LotR is very bubble gum. NO ONE dies in LotR and it takes all the suspense out of conflict. If we’re genuinely worried about our group every time they take on 800 inquest or whatever it was we slaughtered in episode 2, it gets a lot more interesting.

Fluffball.8307:

NO ONE dies in LotR…

Boromir dies. Bam! Denethor also dies, but he has far less of a role than Boromir, who at least gets most of a book to spend time with us.

EDIT- and Theoden, but you can also argue he has too little of a role for us to count him.

Eggman.1405:

Fluffball.8307:

NO ONE dies in LotR…

Boromir dies. Bam! Denethor also dies, but he has far less of a role than Boromir, who at least gets most of book to spend time with us.

EDIT- and Theoden, but you can also argue he has too little of a role for us to count him.

Don’t forget that Gandalf “dies”, Gollum dies, and Saurman dies as far as those who actually have a major impact on the story….

Also Belinda dies!?!?!? Thanks for the spoiler…. :P

Ya ya ya, lol. You know what I mean. It’s incredibly frustrating that out of the 100 most prominent characters going to war where they’re outnumbered and fighting in brutal hand to hand combat against inhuman beasts wielding two handed axes who ride on wolves the size of rhinos, while be peppered with countless thousands of arrows and thrown weapons, 99 of them return home without so much as a broken fingernail.

pdavis.8031:

Don’t forget that Gandalf “dies”, Gollum dies, and Saurman dies as far as those who actually have a major impact on the story….

Oh yes, there are other examples. I mainly left out villains, so you can toss Grima in there too if you like.

Fluffball.8307:

Ya ya ya, lol. You know what I mean. It’s incredibly frustrating that out of the 100 most prominent characters going to war where they’re outnumbered and fighting in brutal hand to hand combat against inhuman beasts wielding two handed axes who ride on wolves the size of rhinos, while be peppered with countless thousands of arrows and thrown weapons, 99 of them return home without so much as a broken fingernail.

All true, but let us not forget the bold sacrifice of the 1% who didn’t make it home .

Fluffball.8307:

Ya ya ya, lol. You know what I mean. It’s incredibly frustrating that out of the 100 most prominent characters going to war where they’re outnumbered and fighting in brutal hand to hand combat against inhuman beasts wielding two handed axes who ride on wolves the size of rhinos, while be peppered with countless thousands of arrows and thrown weapons, 99 of them return home without so much as a broken fingernail.

Yeah, not so much, Frodo lost a finger, Sam, Merry, Pippen were all scared for life and possibly had PTSD something fierce, Legolas and Gimli were changed, and Legolas, having seen the sea, would never know peace in Middle Earth again. While this is getting WAY OT, to bring it back in, this game is going nowhere NEAR GoT. So a secondary character dies. But it plays into the story, makes it seem more “real”. While nothing physically happen to Majory, we know she is hurt by what happened to her sister. How is this going to impact her in the next portion of the story? She went back to be with the rest of her family, but will she return? Or if she does will be even more protective of Kasmeer? Or be more hesitant about taking action? I think having a death now and again of secondary, or even a main character, can do a lot for the “Living” world that Anet is putting together. It makes it seem more real in that not everyone is uneffected by our actions, and the actions of the BEBG. We get to see those in the story as their lives are torn apart, their friends and family die, they get injured, etc.

Lord of The Rings style isn’t my favourite type of story. There are bad guys which are painted black (so you won’t miss them) and there are good guys, in light colours.

Now, that may work in bedtime story, but it won’t grab attention of modern player. Living Story season 1 was styled like it and people hated it.

I’m not asking for “Game of Thrones”. It’s a weird thing that every “mature” story is now being compared to Game of Thrones, which is, wannabe-mature for me.

If you read both Sapkowski’s books about Witcher/Hus Triology and Game of Thrones you’ll clearly see the difference. One is far more “epic”, crafted for western community when Sapkowski’s worlds are painfully true and as brutally realistic as fantasy world can be. There’s racism, there are lies, there are no good or bad.

That, sir, is well-crafted world. Closer GW2 story is to this, the more happy I am.

You’re just listing character development or suggesting mental trauma for the LotR characters, other than Frodo’s finger, and it was a complete cheeseball move that he lost his finger instead of sacrificing his life like all the foreshadowing lead us to believe he would.

Don’t get me wrong, LotRs is a great series that I loved as a child and I own all the movies, but literature has moved beyond that bubble gum cheese. If you’ve heard JRR talk about GoT, he says basically the same thing. He too loves LotR, but it should not be copied. LotR is black and white, GoTs is interesting.

We can’t go anywhere close to the extreme of GoTs for this game, but we can learn something from it. Anet is definitely not afraid to kill people, they do it constantly with brutal regularity. They just have to make sure it has impact for us. And I will be a happy camper.

Fluffball.8307:

We can’t go anywhere close to the extreme of GoTs for this game, but we can learn something from it. Anet is definitely not afraid to kill people, they do it constantly with brutal regularity. They just have to make sure it has impact for us. And I will be a happy camper.

If you look at GW2 and talk to people in game and on the forums (your experience may differ), but no one gives a kitten about nearly any NPC.
The only NPC players remotely care about are Quaggans, Skirtts and Tybalt (because he’s a goofy char).

The only NPCs we spend a bit of time with are :
-Treahearne, which a lot of players dislike because he’s the Pact leader
-Rox, Braham, Marjory, Kass and more recently Taimi.

Of those, the only death that would shock and move players would be Taimi’s. Which they won’t kill.

Fluffball.8307:

You’re just listing character development or suggesting mental trauma for the LotR characters, other than Frodo’s finger, and it was a complete cheeseball move that he lost his finger instead of sacrificing his life like all the foreshadowing lead us to believe he would.

Don’t get me wrong, LotRs is a great series that I loved as a child and I own all the movies, but literature has moved beyond that bubble gum cheese. If you’ve heard JRR talk about GoT, he says basically the same thing. He too loves LotR, but it should not be copied. LotR is black and white, GoTs is interesting.

We can’t go anywhere close to the extreme of GoTs for this game, but we can learn something from it. Anet is definitely not afraid to kill people, they do it constantly with brutal regularity. They just have to make sure it has impact for us. And I will be a happy camper.

No the mental traume wasn’t suggested for the LotR characters. Frodo was definetly scarred, he was never the same, kept having fits and periods of severe depression for years. Sam, Merry and Pippen all experienced traumatic events, and were regarded as “odd” and more “serious and somber” at times. I think we may see the same type of things play out with Marjoy. Either way I feel it adds more depth to the characters, and of course is more character development, which is important, and I felt was lacking a bit with season 1.

RedStar.4218:

If you look at GW2 and talk to people in game and on the forums (your experience may differ), but no one gives a kitten about nearly any NPC.
The only NPC players remotely care about are Quaggans, Skirtts and Tybalt (because he’s a goofy char).

The only NPCs we spend a bit of time with are :
-Treahearne, which a lot of players dislike because he’s the Pact leader
-Rox, Braham, Marjory, Kass and more recently Taimi.

Of those, the only death that would shock and move players would be Taimi’s. Which they won’t kill.

Ya, I agree. I think they’re trying to get us to care more about the characters lately so when someone does die, we care. I don’t know if I’d label is as “caring”, but it would be shocking to me if Braham died. I like Marjory enough I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. I really like her. I feel the same way about Caithe.

They might kill Taimi out of combat, through her disease. That could be really moving.

Them killing off Taimi? Possible, but kinda iffy. If anything, they would have her ask the player for one dying wish, and that would be to upload her consciousness into some specialized Mr. Scruffy. One based off Scarlet’s research of course.

I don’t think it’s fair to claim that we want GW2 to become more like GoT or more like LoTR. These are complex and well designed fantasy worlds in a different league than GW. Killing more characters does not make it more like GoT, and because it is a heroic story do not make it more like LoTR.

GW will never be anywhere near any of these stories. It’s understandable, and I don’t think drawing similarities are fair towards the writers of GW. They are not that talented and are also writing for a game in which story can’t be delivered in a good way.

GoT style story? One freaking side character dies and you call it a GoT story? In the personal story we had more tragic character deaths (the mentors) than this so how is the Living Story suddenly more GoT style?

You do realize that when Anet said that they were trying to have their LS be like GoT they weren’t referring to events that were happening in the GoT story at all right? What they meant by that was that they wanted to have plot twists and suspense in their story in order to have people on the edge wanting to know what happens in the next episode. They wanted us to keep trying to figure out what’s going to happen next in the story because that’s how things are for people watching the GoT series. You always want to know what’s to gonna happen to your favorite character or how a newly introduced character is going to relate to the ongoing story, what’s their role.

Now if we look at what we have in LS S2:

1- Where does this Master of Peace fit in and what’s he hiding
2- What’s Mordy trying to find and where is he going to attack next?
3- What’s with the new amulet artifact we found that shows who’s the heir of Kryta.
4- What does the Pale Tree know that we will find out?

If you ask me, we’re already on the edge trying to find out what’s going to happen next. This is what Anet meant by a LS that’s like GoT.

They’ve definitely achieved suspense, I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much lore speculation across every forum as this. However I think most people bringing up GoTs are doing so because it’s a gritty show where the heroes aren’t safe. Who cares if Taimi gets in to a dangerous situation? You know she’s going to be fine. That takes 100% of the danger out of a dangerous event.

Personally, I don’t think GW2 can be like GoT, because the widely celebrated suspense that is the hallmark of that series is built on characters the audience is made to invest in. Our game doesn’t have that, and it’s why even when people do die, the response here is very lukewarm. It’s not enough to make it so that anyone can die- GoT is successful because anyone you like can die. The biconics are the only faces in the current story that have the level of development to even be in the running for that, and I personally don’t think I would mourn for any of them, should they encounter a tragic twist. Quite frankly, I’m not sure the MMO medium can generate that degree of investment in a character, at least on a consistent enough basis to make the style of storytelling currently in question worth it.

pdavis.8031:

Fluffball.8307:

You’re just listing character development or suggesting mental trauma for the LotR characters, other than Frodo’s finger, and it was a complete cheeseball move that he lost his finger instead of sacrificing his life like all the foreshadowing lead us to believe he would.

Don’t get me wrong, LotRs is a great series that I loved as a child and I own all the movies, but literature has moved beyond that bubble gum cheese. If you’ve heard JRR talk about GoT, he says basically the same thing. He too loves LotR, but it should not be copied. LotR is black and white, GoTs is interesting.

We can’t go anywhere close to the extreme of GoTs for this game, but we can learn something from it. Anet is definitely not afraid to kill people, they do it constantly with brutal regularity. They just have to make sure it has impact for us. And I will be a happy camper.

No the mental traume wasn’t suggested for the LotR characters. Frodo was definetly scarred, he was never the same, kept having fits and periods of severe depression for years. Sam, Merry and Pippen all experienced traumatic events, and were regarded as “odd” and more “serious and somber” at times. I think we may see the same type of things play out with Marjoy. Either way I feel it adds more depth to the characters, and of course is more character development, which is important, and I felt was lacking a bit with season 1.

I agree, the mental scarring of all the LoTR characters is described in detail. I have read both series of books, GoT is actually quite disappointing but as far as LoTR goes, its far from black and white. The depth of characterisation, the struggles of Boromir, the political subterfuge of Saruman and Sauron, Saurons slow corruption of the once proud Denethor and his attempt at gaining the support of the Dwarves of Erebor, it outshines Martin’s work in every respect. Martin’s work effectively reads like a 14 year old boys wet dream. Hurr hurr knights, boobs, dragons hurr hurr lets kill them all now. He threw in so many storylines into the first few books that he doesnt even know where theyre going now, so much is practically just forgotten about, its such a letdown and I’d hate to see GW go the same way, whether you like it or not, it was Tolkeins work that kick started fantasy in pop culture.

You know, I don’t want my characters to die….
Although it was fun in Guild Wars: Factions for the sake of the story.

But in all seriousness, I cater to fan-favorites so when a character I’m a fan of dies I get pretty disappointed. The problem with GoT is there are so many characters you can like that handled willy-nilly that it’s like reading a minefield. Now each character in some way plays a role, there is a plot and JRR knows how he wants to end it. Often times writers come up with a story based firstly on how it ends so the trick is trying to convey how to get there – the journey. But the fact that it’s so gritty and unpologetic does make it interesting.

But at the same time GW1 had it really good. You’re introduced to a thriving nation that within about 10-20 minutes is decimated. Rurik’s bride to be is captured and flamed alive, all efforts to protect the city are practically in vein, you look to these strangely dressed fellow to protect you – who end up being very nefarious themselves. I think over all they had a pretty good formula and each story (Factions Nightfall) was different, they didn’t copy the steps verbatim.

The main problem with an MMO storyline is that there isn’t much threat and danger. Players don’t really mind if a city gets destroyed as there will still be a trading post, repair anvil, and bank somewhere else. You can repeat the story again tomorrow.

The LOTR trilogy puts the characters under a lot of genuine threat, even if most survive. I haven’t read GoT but I imagine the threat is there and frequently realized. MMOs need to go for excitement instead, a bit like a B movie blockbuster with flashy effects where you know nobody will die but it’s fun anyway.

Given that the way the story is delivered, GW2 could even draft the LS as a comic book or manga and see if it stands on its own merit. The comic could then be used by new players to catch up on previous living story chapters. Maybe they could even use screenshots as the images for that.

Nope definitely not. Because that would mean almost every interesting character will die and only the villains stay alive.

Personally I see GoT as a soap opera. Most of the plots would work just as well in Dallas.

The degree to which they manipulate the emotions of the viewers to keep people watching is cliched, obvious and a little sad.

GoT couldn’t handle real evil. Even dealing with a natural disaster would strain the format. When you see how incapable the storyline would be in dealing with issues that aren’t just politics and drama, you realise how limited it is.

I wish more characters in GW2 died. In particular, Logan and Trahearne.

Vol.7601:

I don’t understand how people are up in arms with Belinda dying and expecting this is the start of more deaths (even though you said it’s not about her, I bet you thought about it since GoT = deaths). How in the world can you start on that path? Just cause one, somewhat insignificant person dies doesn’t mean we’re going down that path with more minor characters. Belinda died, OK we’ll deal with it. There is no need to make it a big issue.

Yeah, GoT has somethings GW2 doesn’t, namely a large and mostly well characterized cast. Currently in GW2 we have Destiny’s Edge and Destiny’s Edge 2.0. There really isn’t a lot of room for a lot of killing.

Anyway my thinking is this: Belinda didn’t really die so much as a means of playing on our emotions but her death took Marjory out of the picture (and potentially Kasmeer as well) which (as I’m guessing from the trailer) is allowing us to focus more or Rox and Braham (who up until now have basically been background characters).

pdavis.8031:

Also Belinda dies!?!?!? Thanks for the spoiler…. :P

Welcome to the lore forum

Stooperdale.3560:

The main problem with an MMO storyline is that there isn’t much threat and danger. Players don’t really mind if a city gets destroyed as there will still be a trading post, repair anvil, and bank somewhere else. You can repeat the story again tomorrow.

But in my case the appeal is not in the end result, but in the journey. The journey can be fun and entertaining without the need for threat and danger. The story as it stands is about exploration, about discovery. The interest of players is not as a result of wondering what’s going to happen to the biconics but rather wondering what will be revealed, what the answers to the questions are.
Sure I guess if ANet could have their cake and eat it (that is to say have a story that is both one of discovery and one of suspense) that would be great but I won’t hold it against the story if it appeals to me in one way and not in another.

CureForLiving.5360:

pdavis.8031:

Also Belinda dies!?!?!? Thanks for the spoiler…. :P

Welcome to the lore forum

I was being sarcastic :P I made sure to stay away from the lore forums until I had a chance to actually play the story. I don’t like spoilers :P

pdavis.8031:

CureForLiving.5360:

pdavis.8031:

Also Belinda dies!?!?!? Thanks for the spoiler…. :P

Welcome to the lore forum

I was being sarcastic :P I made sure to stay away from the lore forums until I had a chance to actually play the story. I don’t like spoilers :P

I thought it was funny because as I read your post, I was thinking, “Hey! Spoilers!” Even though I had read the books.