Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

Thought this would be the best place to ask this.

I played GW2 as soon as it came out, for several months, before moving on, managing to get my Asuran Thief up to around level 50. I’m now getting back into it again, but something I’ve always struggled with is understanding the story.

The Personal Story stuff is fine, though I don’t think it makes the whole Elder Dragon stuff a big enough deal. I haven’t even seen a dragon yet, but they are referenced throughout the story as if they are incredibly important, yet I have not seen them, either face to face or as part of a cutscene to help set the story.

It’s the Living World stuff I have the biggest issue with. From a design perspective, I get the desire to let players wander around and discover content for themselves, but there is very little sense of “why”, generally, in Guild Wars 2. With Golden Hearts, you just start doing things without any explanation – you have to seek out the explanation to understand the context of what you’re doing, which feels backwards to me. I understand the reason for breaking away from the traditional MMO questing format, but this system just feels too “take it or leave it” to me.

Which just leaves the Dynamic Events, which are great fun to take part in, but unless you encounter them in the correct sequence then they make very little sense. You have to spend a great deal of time in a single area to get a complete sense of the story being told there, and it’s often confusing as I’m constantly experiencing things out of sequence.

I’ve taken to using Event Timer websites in order to focus my wandering in areas where I know things are kicking off soon, but doesn’t the existence of these sites prove that the design is inherently flawed?

Sort of moved away from Lore and into gameplay there, so apologies. I’m more interested in figuring out the best way to enjoy the story, so feel free to focus your replies there

Cheers!

Well…

You using outside sources, like the Event Timer websites, to influence your gameplay is part of the problem. While Anet gave them the tools to make them, those are strictly player ran websites, to help people keep track of the mega bosses and whatnot. They aren’t an actual part of the game. By following the Event Timer, I don’t think you are giving yourself enough time in an area to get a good feel for it, before moving onto the next area.

When I started, I made it a habit on my first character to try and do all the event chains and renown hearts in an area before moving to the next one. I’m sure I forgot a good majority of it, but it helped me get a good grasp of the entire story and conflicts in Tyria. Not to mention, it was all towards world completion anyway.

That is how I usually play, I’ve only just started using those websites in the last few days, and I’m levelling up much faster than I was before. Really, I just want ot know what the best way of following the story is, because I feel like I’m missing some important parts that aren’t made obvious by just wandering around.

I guess the idea was that if you dont have want to deal woth storylines, you dont have to. However, you are intersted in them, but you still want them to be at your disposal quickly. Ane of the best things in this game in my opinion is that a person who looks beyond the “kill centaurs and raid their supply” can digest a good bit of story. You are interested in it I understand, but don’t want to investigate? This is a common thought through a big part of the player base. But I encourage you to take some time to look around. Talk to living world NPC’s, speak with the NPC’s in the personal story after the obligatory dialogue screen. This way, youll find yourself much more interested in lore. I have a few buddies playing Guild Wars 2 and he is further ahead in terms of leveling characters and gold, but did he enjoy it more than I did, I think not. The speculating and discussing on this forum really helps deepen the experience for me. If you have a question just ask!

I actually talked to all the scouts my first time doing world completion, they actually tell you why you’re doing what you do at the hearts.

As for the dynamic events and the living story, they’re both trying to do the same thing. Before launch the buzzword (I guess buzzsentence) for anet was creating a “living, breathing world.” That the world doesn’t need you to progress forward and you can come in at the middle of it. So you have an issue with the design of the living story in general.

Level 50 is when you really move into the dragons, the story before then is about your race and you. Really exploring is where you get a feel for the threat the dragons pose. You’ll start getting into orr and really see what a dragon is capable of.

Great, thanks everyone I’ll be logging on tonight to continue my personal story, so hopefully I’ll see some dragons soon

personal story level 52 if I’m right

GW2 events tend to show the current state of the game and do not dwell too much on lore and history. I don’t think this is wrong, it’s just a different approach from games that give you endless fantasy history about every elf and dwarf that ever lived. With that in mind we get events about the skritt stealing from the asura, ogres finding pets, krait taking slaves, and so on. This gives GW2 an opportunity to add modern history through the Living Story.

Remember the dragons are extremely powerful beings. They literally feed on the magical life force of the world, and they emanate that magic while they sleep. To come face to face with one while they are at full strength is literally suicide. The goal of the latter half of the personal story is identifying the dragon, figuring out how he basically works, and crippling him bit by bit.

Without giving away anything. The biggest issue people had with the death of Zhaitan is that it appears he dies like a little kitten, but they forget that the personal story quests, you crippled him but various means. It would be like trying to fight someone much bigger then you, but first you break their legs.

I do suggest you read through the wiki about the lore. There is a lot going on. I personally love Guild Wars lore more than any other lore.

I have actually just read up on the story, and I’ve figured out what it was I was missing. I assumed the dragons had JUST re-emerged, and I couldn’t understand why the characters in the game weren’t making a bigger deal about it. Think Deathwing in WoW. But it actually happened several years ago, and it’s not been that much of a problem up to now, so it’s not been much of a priority for anyone.

I’m focused on getting to level 80 right now and completing the personal story, then I’ll start taking my time with the world and soak in all the Lore There’s so much I’ve missed not following the living world, I want to catch up asap.

Lol, not just several years ago, over 100 years ago. His rising is old history, and people have a tendency to grow complacent with threats like that as long as they don’t move against them too often.

Only Zhaitan woke up 100 years prior to GW2. Primordus woke 200 years prior, and Jormag 150 years prior, with the deep sea dragon waking 50 years prior, Kralkatorrik being awake for 5 years – Mordremoth hasn’t even awakened by the time of the personal story but a year later. And even then, each Dragon has only affected a single major race at most, and only when waking except Jormag and Zhaitan, which is why they get the most story focus.

I really suggest talking to all the NPCs throughtout each story step, and before completing each heart, rather than waiting to get to lvl 80 before focusing on lore. Most of the game’s backstory is told in the personal story or pre-completion heart and scout NPCs, which are one-time only viewability. And when I last saw, those were least documented on GW2W. If you don’t talk to them and pay attention, you may miss more than half of the game’s presented lore in first-hand reading, and half of that half completely from it not being on the wiki.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Only Zhaitan woke up 100 years prior to GW2. Primordus woke 200 years prior, and Jormag 150 years prior, with the deep sea dragon waking 50 years prior, Kralkatorrik being awake for 5 years – Mordremoth hasn’t even awakened by the time of the personal story but a year later. And even then, each Dragon has only affected a single major race at most, and only when waking except Jormag and Zhaitan, which is why they get the most story focus.

I really suggest talking to all the NPCs throughtout each story step, and before completing each heart, rather than waiting to get to lvl 80 before focusing on lore. Most of the game’s backstory is told in the personal story or pre-completion heart and scout NPCs, which are one-time only viewability. And when I last saw, those were least documented on GW2W. If you don’t talk to them and pay attention, you may miss more than half of the game’s presented lore in first-hand reading, and half of that half completely from it not being on the wiki.

Well Kralkatorrik is probably still licking his wounds, Primordus is busy fighting the dwarves, the deep sea dragon apparently has been attacking races but at the bottom of the ocean, and Mordremoth hasn’t been awake long enough to attack anything.

It’s not that they’re not doing anything but with the exception of Kralkatorrik and Mordremoth, the dragons are just doing things that arn’t visible.

I never said they’re not doing anything. I said that only Jormag and Zhaitan are an active threat to the major races. Kralkatorrik could be considered such but his threat only lies inthe Dragonbrand, not in any active action unlike Zhaitan’s invasions on Port Stalwart, Port Noble, and Lion’s Arch or Jormag’s continuous push south.

Beyond their awakening, Pirmordus and Kralkatorrik held no effect on the major races, Mordremoth wasn’t awake for the personal story, which is set in 1325 AE (be awoke in 1327), and the DSD holds no noticeable (direct) effects on continental Tyria.

This is what I said, in far fewer words.

Basically they are great and terrible threats, but they are distant. It isn’t until they come a knocking (aka fall of claw island) that they become the serious threat that they truly are. Well in this instance that specific one is, lol. I think, personally, that the game does a good job of really showing the ignorant mindset of the PC as they go through and slowly learn. I mean, it’s similar to how charr have always been a major threat to humanity, but if you ask people around Divinity’s Reach, they are far more likely to see the Centaurs as a threat then the Charr.

They’re all distant threat for 4 of 5 major races, if not all five. Then Zhaitan attacks the Orders who’ve been the main ones trying to counter them, and as a member of one Order, you unite the three to fight Zhaitan.

Jormag is not a distant threat to norn. Zhaitan is not a distant threat to sylvari (though he is a recent threat to them), and Kralkatorrik is not a distant threat to charr. But they are to everyone else. And even then, charr have bigger closer issues (Flame Legion, peace treaty talks, and Foefire ghosts). And norn also deal with dredge. And sylvari have Nightmare Court. The others also have more immediate threats, especially humans, so it would be like someone from Japan caring about the wars in the Middle East, if a charr cared about Primordus etc.