Guild Wars 2

This is not the appropriate forum for such. It would be more appropriate here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/fangen

Purpose
Hello, this is my first post. I really enjoyed guild wars 2 but felt like it fell short in many of the story aspects. I would like to see an overall deeper sense of realism with many areas of Tyria. A particular story that I feel could use a face lift is the lower class humans of divinity reach. In addition to the “street rats” I believe bandits should have clearer aspirations just like Riot Alice did. Please let me know what you think of this “sense of realism” change. Thank you.
P.S. -Removed short story included-hope this is more forum-appropriate

Hmm personally I find the story in gw2 to have a big sense of realism. There is a great attention to detail. you mention bandits having clear aspirations and i think Queensdale is a very clear example of that. You get a huge bandit hideout right in the middle of the map and events that tie that to their agenda… drive farmers off, take control of the food supply (I image their end goal is to induce a famine and then profit by selling the food under their control at a premium price). All the events in the area support this story. They raid the mill where there is a warehouse of stuff in the basement. They try to poison the water supply to kill the crops, they try to take over the cow farm, they blockade the bridge from divinity’s reach to prevent soldiers from messing up with their plans etc…

Even the Living World has a ton of realism elements in it. There is passage of time with the story something thats missing from all other MMOs. The environment reflects the story which is again generally missing in other MMOs. Player Characters arent these perfect omnipotent beings that solve absolutely everything while everyone else (NPC) just sit there and wait for deliverance by the players. World changing events dont simple occur in a very short timespan but rather their is proper build up.

I dont know personally I feel they’re doing a great job here, is there anything specific you have issues with?

So where is the realism behind the Aetherblades? Who founded them? Who is funding them? What did they do before they were Aetherblades? Where is their main base of operations in Tyra (is TA big enough considering how large their numbers are – and if it is, why are they so racially diverse?)?

If Scarlet is a known threat and Tyria has organisations that deal with that kind of thing, why were the only NPCs present at the marionette the Living Story cast? Why wasn’t the Vigil, Priory or Order of Whipsers there? Why not the norn (just south of their capital)? Or the Seraph (Scarlet did attack their city)? Or one of the charr warbands (the Molten Alliance supposedly threatened the Black Citadel)? Why is the Living Story cast constantly involved and the other relevant authorities not? We should be dealing with charr Tribunes and Centurions as they martial their forces to take on Scarlet (or rank and file members working under them but as part as a focused effort – it doesn’t even make sense that Rox was sent to do anything she’s doing alone, what does she prove by being present when players kill Tequatl? Is she stealing the credit from the players? From the Vigil who organised that fight?). We should see the Seraph trying to track Scarlet down after what happened in Divinity’s Reach. We should see the different orders discussing what information they have on her and see which people within these organisations are tasked with taking her down (Marjory would have been a good Order of Whispers character). Instead we see Marjory and Kasmeer talk about her father, or Rox tell us Rytlock has set a trial for her and the end result is a whole lot of story about a handful of characters and not enough story about the complex world these big events are happening in. The world is not believable when large scale events become about small time characters.

These things aren’t mutually exclusive – there is room in all of that to tell stories about characters, about their relationships and who they are as people, but you build it from a foundation of “this NPC makes sense as one of the core figures in this story”.

The Open World and Personal Story did a good job of portraying a believable world (for the most part) but the Living Story is lacking in the details and narrative choices that flesh out the story and the events they are trying to tell. I also agree that characters like Riot Alice are uncommon in the story. Usually the villains are straight up villains and you are usually not positioned to feel sympathetic towards them or view them as real people with real problems. Compare that to a show like “The Wire” (admittedly intended for a more mature audience than GW2) where often you are positioned to think the “good guys” are worse than the villains.

I feel like this “lack of realism” is more a “lack of focus”.
AN’s design philosophy is very inclusive, in terms of both game design and story.

So, instead of focusing on one complex area of Tyria (like DR) they went for a broad spectrum of all playable races and orders.

@Shiren

Scarlet did, What she did is basically facilitate a marriage of convenience. By providing Pirates with flying ships (using the Inquest lighting magic) it enabled the pirates to literally strike anywhere (how could they refuse such an opportunity?) as for the inquest with pirates on their side they probably now get unrestricted access to all the equipment they need (since now they have pirates who can do the procuring for them). Again i feel it makes perfect sense that the inquest would go for it being an organization who logically finds it hard to procure the stuff they need considering their believes are at odds with their own society. Before they were two distinct groups, pirates and inquest. Both groups have been in hiding since long before they became the aetherblades. As players we already uncovered 2 bases which we both stopped there are bound to be more.

Well the players are all members of those various organizations so in a way they’re represented. In anycase not enough time has passed for mass mobilization by any organization. Especially when you factor in the Clockwork invasions that still happen randomly all over the place. Mass mobilization is always tricky. What if the seraph were to march to the marionette and while occupied there Scarlet launches another attack on divinity’s reach? The marionette is defintely cause for concern but I wouldnt expect the Queen to order her army to march off leaving the city and the other krytan territories undefended on impulse the moment the threat shows up. That would be far less realistic imho.

You’re also incorrect in believing the other authorities are not concerned with Scarlet. In the story instance available in this specific release both Logan and Rythlock were investigating Scarlet. Not just that but if you experienced the instance then you know that

I agree with your point overall, its true complex world events shouldnt boil down to a few characters but its unfeasable to have absolutely everyone involved all the time. So far we had a huge cast of characters involved more so then I’ve seen in other MMOs. We did help the order of whispers investigate scarlet in flame and frost
The lion guard in Sky Pirates
The seraph in the Jubilee
Lionguard again in TA
At the same time all of destiny edge was involved in the story in some capacity as well as the new destiny edge if we want to call them that.
With a ton of other supporting characters like the refugees, marcello and the tron, Canach and the consortium , the npcs co-ordinating the refugees etc..
Besides with the only exception of the players own faction why should the other factions and various governments update us players with the progress of any investigation they might be doing before they’re ready? That would not be very realistic imho.

Your last point is actually very interesting. We still dont know what Scarlets endgame is, we do know from the what scarlet saw short story that it all started with a desire to free the Sylvari from being controlled by destiny / the pale tree. That in itself seems to be a noble goal but then the way she’s going about it is pretty crazy. Nothing noble about insighting various alliances to do murder and mayham. There is also the madness to consider. I for one cannot wait for that threat that will bring sense to all of this because there are enough signs that this is not just mayhem for the sake of mayhem and that can make her quite an interesting character. If you watch anime and may have seen Code Geass I find Scarlet to share some similarities to the main character there. The character there does really evil things but with seemgly noble goal. His actions though make you really doubt his goals are geniune until the very end. This seems somewhat similar.

I don’t beleive authorities aren’t concerned. I’ve read in the game several times where their concern exists (for the record, telling Rox to take her down is weak, Scarlet is a huge threat, Rox is a low ranking charr on her own). I’ve seen Scarlet directly engage them in their back yard. What I don’t see is anyone of these organisations are the marionette. I agree it’s unfeasible to have everyone involved at the same time, which is why I believe it’s such a waste to have such a poorly positioned core cast. If you have limited numbers for the story, why blow them on small time characters? Why not pick the roles that best tell the story?

As far as defending their home territories – Marjory and Kasmeer were given the key roles in Tower of Nightmare, not Seraph despite it being their territory. Some soldiers were presence, but the story was firmly about Marjory and Kasmeer.

In the Personal Story the player gives Tyria every reason to look to them when it comes to Scarlet. By the end of the story you are one of the highest ranking Pact members and a slayer of an Elder Dragon. If I was taking on Scarlet, that’s a person I’d like to talk to.

As far as mass mobilization goes, it’s not exactly a long walk from Priory HQ. Even if you concede that Vigil or OoW couldn’t make it, why couldn’t the priory? Honestly, the location has enough infrastructure that someone should have noticed it long ago.

Are we even sure the Aetherblades are recruited from existing pirate groups? I was under the impression the air ships aren’t Inquest tech but rather they were stolen from the Pact.

I’ve never written Scarlet off as mad or not having a reason for doing what she does. I can’t really criticize her motivation yet because it hasn’t been revealed. I seriously doubt she has noble intentions (repeating Canach’s warped logic on a grander scale would be kind of lame) and as others have pointed out, she’s more destructive than she is constructive. I do dislike this false idea that she is freeing the sylvari from the chains of he Pale Tree. There is this false dichotomy that people seem to think the sylvari live by. The Dreamers an the Nightmare Court. The sylvari aren’t that simple, there are the Soundless and the countless other sylvari that become pirates or other less than noble professions counter to Venari’s teachings. If that’s hwe motivation she can stop now – the sylari are already free.

Well I dont think Rythlock meant for Rox to go deal with it herself. Similar to her getting the tail of Tequalt I expect Rox to engage the players. At the end of the day these NPCs are forging alliances with us the players. Rox doesnt need to go solo Scarlet to satisfy Rythlock, she just needs to be there when it all goes down and report to Rythlock that its done…. provided she survives the ordeal. You know the charr they have a ton of machoism they’ll make it sound like everything is trivial for them but they’re no idiots and I think that little story with Tequalt’s tail paints that up beautifully.

I understand what you mean by picking better characters but when creating story that spans cultures that can be tricky. In the personal story they created the Pact for this very reason because realistically speaking if first we did missions for say the order of whispers it would be unrealistic to have the vigil and priory join their inner circle and share with us their secrets so that we can get the job done. Same here if when Scarlet’s motlen alliance attacked charr and norn territory we went and help out the Charr by working closely to tribunes etc.. would the Norn welcome us with open arms ? especially after it turns out the flame legion is involved in the attacks? would it make sense that someone like countess Anise be that open? Having a band of nearly nobodies allows forging of relationships that would otherwise be very hard to do when you associate with high echelons of power so to speak. The moment you associate yourself with a high power you’re labeled as being a member of that faction and others will distrust you.

As for the Pact, it could have been a viable option but does the pact still exist? it was a bit of a marriage of convenience in a way and the need for it died with zaithan essentially. of course they could have decided to keep the pact going to deal with the other dragons but we still have to see if thats the case or not.

as far as i know they were pirates but yes they got their airships by stealing them from the pact you’re right. that being said they were improved through inquest tech. I mean you can compare the speed of a regular pact air ship from Orr to the ones the pirates use… no comparison the aetherblades airship are extremely fast.

The sylvari are a complex society thats for sure. That being said the sylvari ta become pirates and do evil deeds are supposedly consumed by nightmare. The core phyolosofy of nightmare is after that the dreaming is keeping sylvari in chains. Irony is that most likely so is nightmare. As far as I am aware in the story only 1 sylvari isnt touched by the dreaming and thats Malyck. The degree of control varies but I think wyld and dark hunts are pretty obvious that something in the dreaming / nightmare can imprint the sylvari to perform specific tasks when needed.

There is likely some truth to Scarlets quest.

But yes how the story is end is crucial to the overall quality of the story I completely agree. A good ending can make the whole thing brilliant while a bad one will indeed the destroy the whole story. No pressure Arenanet