Guild Wars 2

Being the main hero of everything made sense back in GW1 mainly because it was instanced gameplay. There weren’t another hundred Chosen skirmishing in the Temple of Tolerance, there werent another hundred Ascended Chosen who saw the mursaat on the Ring of Fire, there werent another thousand who were granted another chance at life by the envoys when Shiro killed them. The story of the game fitted well with the technical part of the game. However when we were told to be just one of the many (ascalonian prodigy, Shing Jea student, sunspear recruit), it still worked because we played a minor role.

In GW2 we start out in minor roles as we should. Its compatible with the idea that there are many others who venture a bit further from the home city with personal issues/stories in mind. Up to the point of the loss of Claw Island. As the story progresses we become more and more important supposedly, while the amount of people doing exactly what we are doing in the open world rises. There is an inconsistency between the open world (and also in the living world), and the main story thats supposed to tell us that we are the best of the best. In the end of the personal story its the most glaring with having to pick another 4 “Commanders” coming out of nowhere to complete it.

It might have been a conscious design to balance out the feeling of uniqueness, importance and being part of the many, but for me it mostly felt inconsistent.

It would be nice if Anet decided finally what they wanted us to be. Seeing how the open world is not going anywhere anytime soon, and the amount of high level characters always rising, it might be more adviseable to lean to the One of Many side. That would require them to make the world interact more though. The characters of the DE2 are pretty good already, but the world itself is still lacking. The other characters, organisations and groups dont do much, and have little to no personality to them.

Though with the battle for LA and its aftermath presents a bit of development on that front too, so thats good. Hopefully it will keep progressing that way.

Silalus.8760:

Everyone should be the hero of their own story. Everyone.

This is a Joseph Campbell thing. I’m not just talking players- in a perfect world of stories this would go for everyone from NPC’s dying alone in the flames of Lion’s Arch to Scarlet sitting in her lair, plotting a way to end her pain by sharing it with the world. All of them, in their own minds as they live the story of their lives, should see themselves as the hero, the protagonist, in the events unfolding around them.

One way to see things like Scarlet “sitting in her lair, plotting a way to end her pain by sharing it with the world” is fan made work. On that note I created Scarlet’s Lullaby.

This is retelling of season 1 from Scarlet’s point of view in the form of a lullaby she sang to herself as a constant reminder that what she was doing was for love (although her actions clearly indicated otherwise). The song also reminded her that even with an enormous army at her disposal her efforts would ultimately not prevail against the might of all Tyria. So before her death, her mark on Tyria or her “monument” would become established so that its affect would last forever.

The goal behind the video was to show that through her lullaby Scarlet was actually a sympathetic villain who wished to make the world a better place, but went about it through antagonistic and extreme means.

“This will be my monument when I’m gone.”
- Scarlet Briar

lakdav.3694:

Being the main hero of everything made sense back in GW1 mainly because it was instanced gameplay. There weren’t another hundred Chosen skirmishing in the Temple of Tolerance, there werent another hundred Ascended Chosen who saw the mursaat on the Ring of Fire, there werent another thousand who were granted another chance at life by the envoys when Shiro killed them. The story of the game fitted well with the technical part of the game. However when we were told to be just one of the many (ascalonian prodigy, Shing Jea student, sunspear recruit), it still worked because we played a minor role.

I have to disagree. You were never the singular hero of any of GW1. You were never without your band of Ascalonian adventurers and the you were always talked to as a group. They were with you at the Temple of Tolerance (in addition to other White Mantle defenders), as well as in the Ring of Fire. The Flameseeker Prophecies mentions a group of Chosen Ascended, not just one super powerful hero that was destined face an army of titans and a lich by himself. You had to win the allegiance of the Luxons and Kurzicks to get to Shiro, and you were with the entire Sunspear army for the assault on Gandara. You started singular with some direction, then got thrown into something larger. In the end, you formed part of a team to tackle a common goal.

There are only two sections of the GW2 story that I feel were well done:
First is the mentorship under the order representative. You actually get to spend enough time with an interesting character to form a bond. You both work and explore together for a common goal instead of the your Destiny Edge character forcing all their personal issues on you or Trahearne randomly showing up and dragging you off somewhere then leaving again. This section have the appeal of the “small team” feel. You never did anything alone, but you were a great contributor to the success and vital to the effort.
Second is the work up to the assault on Arah where you follow an Order’s plan. Instead of just following around Trahearne and killing what he says, you join in as an integral part of an operation currently in motion and contributing to the overall advancement to Arah rather than babysit angsty Destiny’s Edge or follow Trahearne around some more. While Trahearne is out giving orders and all that, you’re actually out in the field joining in with the other soldiers. One of the part of the story that I find most enjoyable isn’t even a mission. The explorable areas of Orr are wonderful because it really makes you feel like you’re contributing to the effort. You can wander around and find an encampment under siege and join in the Pact defenders, then have other players run in to help, then the NPC thank you and mention that they are going out to fortify/set up another camp and so you follow them. In general, what I like is that these give the feel of actually being a commander. Trahearne is a fine general and can sit in Fort Trinity and plan all he wants, but the commander should be out in the field with the troops guiding them to success instead of watching Trahearne talk to various people and tree spirits.

In conclusion, I have to disagree and say that GW2 is way more “singular” of story than GW1 ever was. While GW1 was always a group following a natural progression of events, GW2 is nearly always “You must choose what plan should affect the entire race,” “You must follow Trahearne and do what he tells you do to,” or “You must come and try to fix my personal issues with my ex-friends.”

I liked that in Orr you had several different important missions that took place at the same time. You choose specific ones and the others happen with other players. Lets also not forget that the Open World of Orr is very much a community experience. The story is built into the Open World (which is why it is so hard to progress the world from that) and that Open World story doesn’t paint you as the sole hero.

I actually think GW1 did the story options better (part of why I’m cautiously optimistic about the journal – it sounds very much like “missions” from GW1). In Prophecies you had one path to take. Fine, it was diverse (for better or worse) and it was interesting, but it’s true you never had options. Factions and Nightfall introduced options in a better way than GW2 offers. Do you want to help the Luxons or the Kurzicks? Do you want to work with Margrid or the Master of Whispers? Support Meloni or Koss? No matter what option you choose, the other option takes place (Kormir is always rescued and the Master of Whispers always allies with you in the end). What makes both these campaigns better than GW2 imo is you can do the other option anyway. If you chose Margrid you can still go back and see what the Master of Whispers was on about. If you chose Luxons you can always go down the Kurzick path later.

Even if you wanted to experience the whole story from a different perspective, it’s very easy to bring another level 20 (or create one) to that campaign and progress through. In GW2 it’s much harder. There are many more options (requiring many more characters) and the cost of entry is much higher (level up and character slots) while the rewards are much lower (in GW1 it was tied into map unlocks, in GW2 it’s an optional thing). I like to complete as much of the story as possible and to have access to all the different moments that took place. There are story options I will never see even with nine level 80 characters because I don’t want to repeat the levelling process over and over.

I think options are great, but from a mechanics perspective (not necessarily lore) I don’t like it when they are mutually exclusive.

Rarely did GW1 make me feel like a faceless lackey (if ever). It’s strange to see someone mention the risk of Living Story characters become them, they are so prominent in the story they made my GW2 character feel like a faceless lackey all the time (it was their story, not mine, sometimes not even Lion’s Arch’s or the rest of Tyria’s), then later on slapped a band-aid on the situation by calling my characters a “leader” or letting me “figure out Scarlet’s plan”. Saying something or showing it and allowing the players to experience it, those are different things. I was told I was a leader of the Living Story, I experienced being a leader during the events of GW1 and the Personal Story.

narwhalsbend.7059:

I have to disagree. You were never the singular hero of any of GW1. You were never without your band of Ascalonian adventurers and the you were always talked to as a group. They were with you at the Temple of Tolerance (in addition to other White Mantle defenders), as well as in the Ring of Fire.

Sorry, minor aside – they were different companions each place.

There are only two sections of the GW2 story that I feel were well done:
First is the mentorship under the order representative. You actually get to spend enough time with an interesting character to form a bond. You both work and explore together for a common goal instead of the your Destiny Edge character forcing all their personal issues on you or Trahearne randomly showing up and dragging you off somewhere then leaving again. This section have the appeal of the “small team” feel. You never did anything alone, but you were a great contributor to the success and vital to the effort.

Or in the case of mentoring under Tybalt, I had to do most everything while he pretended he was an awesome field agent. I know he’s an engineer but I’m a ranger . . . we’re not supposed to have a spotlight to look awesome. That’s why they have guardians and warriors.

Second is the work up to the assault on Arah where you follow an Order’s plan. Instead of just following around Trahearne and killing what he says, you join in as an integral part of an operation currently in motion and contributing to the overall advancement to Arah rather than babysit angsty Destiny’s Edge or follow Trahearne around some more. While Trahearne is out giving orders and all that, you’re actually out in the field joining in with the other soldiers.

Something continually acknowledged by other soldiers in the trenches, yet strangely every player wants to claim Trahearne took all the credit. Weird.

One of the part of the story that I find most enjoyable isn’t even a mission. The explorable areas of Orr are wonderful because it really makes you feel like you’re contributing to the effort. You can wander around and find an encampment under siege and join in the Pact defenders, then have other players run in to help, then the NPC thank you and mention that they are going out to fortify/set up another camp and so you follow them. In general, what I like is that these give the feel of actually being a commander.

The feeling of these events was well done, but their scaling was . . . not. It’s practically impossible sometimes to push any events into success alone, and most of the time that’s how I was in Orr areas. Even more so since the rebalance done to Cursed Shores.

Trahearne is a fine general and can sit in Fort Trinity and plan all he wants, but the commander should be out in the field with the troops guiding them to success instead of watching Trahearne talk to various people and tree spirits.

It’s fair to say that’s exactly what’s going on? I mean, we’re in the field working while we occasionally remember cleansing Orr is important and make effort to push forward with Trahearne on that front. The Personal Story is about striking at Zhaitan and cleansing Orr at that point – the Open World is about the war effort as a whole.

In conclusion, I have to disagree and say that GW2 is way more “singular” of story than GW1 ever was. While GW1 was always a group following a natural progression of events, GW2 is nearly always “You must choose what plan should affect the entire race,” “You must follow Trahearne and do what he tells you do to,” or “You must come and try to fix my personal issues with my ex-friends.”

The first one of those never seemed to be what I read into those things – I was affecting a localized part of a race rather than the whole.

The second was understandable, as it was presented Trahearne had been studying longer than my character had been actively adventuring (assumedly) and had more of a clue on where to go even if it was a faint idea. Also, he usually asked for input at least before presenting me with his plan.

Third . . . these personal issues are easily fixed. Neuter Rytlock, and shove Zojja out somewhere over Southsun Cove with her limbs hog-tied behind her and no Mr. Sparkles.

Shiren.9532:

Rarely did GW1 make me feel like a faceless lackey (if ever). It’s strange to see someone mention the risk of Living Story characters become them, they are so prominent in the story they made my GW2 character feel like a faceless lackey all the time (it was their story, not mine, sometimes not even Lion’s Arch’s or the rest of Tyria’s), then later on slapped a band-aid on the situation by calling my characters a “leader” or letting me “figure out Scarlet’s plan”. Saying something or showing it and allowing the players to experience it, those are different things. I was told I was a leader of the Living Story, I experienced being a leader during the events of GW1 and the Personal Story.

I do feel differently. See, all during Prophecies, I felt like I was being pulled through events with no real choice other than push through and hope things improved. Then it was feeling like the Vizier was manipulating me. During Factions in the middle I was literally going “wasn’t there something we were supposed to be doing about Shiro? Anyone? Isn’t this sort of more important than dealing with this faction war bullcrap?” . . .

Nightfall left my character being a leader (not Kormir, whose leadership failed in the face of Plot Convenient Demons) but almost everything I chose to do seemed too late to matter. It was . . . kind of like trying to stop Scarlet, honestly, with how we were intended to stop Varesh. Everything worked out according to their plan by the time we got to killing “the villain”.

Eye of the North was the only . . . only time I felt like I was a hero, since my character was the only one who kept a level and patient head dealing with the norn and the asura. And was willing to let Pyre step up and be the only charr I’d willingly follow

narwhalsbend.7059:

I have to disagree. You were never the singular hero of any of GW1. You were never without your band of Ascalonian adventurers and the you were always talked to as a group. They were with you at the Temple of Tolerance (in addition to other White Mantle defenders), as well as in the Ring of Fire. The Flameseeker Prophecies mentions a group of Chosen Ascended, not just one super powerful hero that was destined face an army of titans and a lich by himself. You had to win the allegiance of the Luxons and Kurzicks to get to Shiro, and you were with the entire Sunspear army for the assault on Gandara. You started singular with some direction, then got thrown into something larger. In the end, you formed part of a team to tackle a common goal.

In GW1 you had a team of maximum 12 people (8 most of the time), players or AI compainions. While the cities were full of players, the actual adventures only had a capable team of 8 most of the time. I can belive that there are 8 Chosen capable enough to deal with the mursaat in all of Tyria. I can belive that the best students and instructors of the shing jea monastery could stop Shiro and would be granted another chance by the envoys. I can belive that a talented sunspear recruit rises in the ranks fast enough to be able to command a small band of sunspears who survived the Gandara assault. Those allies always followed you, or were part of your team.

I can belive that there were many outgoing people who helped Logan stop the centaurs that day in Shaemoor. I can belive that there are many capable individuals who travel across the fields of ruin, kessex hills, and the like. I can belive that most of them join one of the orders, and rise in the ranks quickly.

Im talking about the compatibility of the open world and the personal story, and in consequence the living story.

Open world: Full of potential heroes and capable people, all coming from pretty much nothing, but being very numerous and very powerful individually and in masses. The world doesnt greet them by title or name, more like just a random adventurer. Not a single one of these random adventurers lead, they only help out. They are not the steering wheel of the machine, nor the engine or the actual wheel, they are just passanger. They dont lead, they are lead. They are not -the- heroes, they are soldiers, adventurers, passers-by.

Personal story: You are a potential hero, a capable person. You come from nothing. But you grow up to be the best of the best, even the marshall of the Pact who is a personal friend of yours takes your advices, you lead the Pact to victory and you stand with Treharne as he cleanses the Artesian Waters. Everyone knows who you are. Your word means an awful lot. YOU are the hero, second only to the plot character whose name shall live in the lore.

Living world (so far): You are one of many adventurers who help out with the Molten alliance, then one of the very few who get into the instanced dungeon and takes it down. Then you are again a nameless zergling for a while, then you are -the- hero again who is friend-nay-leader! of the DE2. Its jumping back and forth all the time, trying to please both the hero and the common soldier kind of players at the same time. It might work for most, but it is really inconsistent, and confusing for those who havent made up their mind yet about wanting to be the hero or the soldier.

What is done is done though, no point in going back and pretending that we never were the leader of DE2. What i propose is making DE2 part of the world too, one capable group out of many, that happens to have the second in command of the Pact as its leader. We can be the middleman between the Pact (just one of the other capable groups) and DE2. If possible, our characters can also be the middleman with groups of our personal stories too. Whatever makes it feel more natural to see masses of other people/players roam around the same heavily hostile environs as we, the supposed heroes do.

You know, it’s kind of ironic, but some of the dislike I see for Trahearne seems to be born of envy. The mentors are more likeable, perhaps because they are more like equals. Trahearne does come across as a bit aloof, and he gets special treatment (and a special sword).

And the players, ironically, are acting just a little bit like Caderyn, and Scarlet in their jealousy of the firstborn. I see a lot of “I should be the hero” and “I want to be the leader”.

And to pile some more irony on, the sin of pride, a common storyline is a cliche of biblical proportions, literally. The fall of Lucifer is archetypical.

To see players, actual people, acting like cliches, in story of cliches, in a genre of cliches… … words fail me.

Life imitating art?

As someone who also temporarily had Caladbolg forced on him, at the start of the most difficult quest up to that point, and got facerolled as a result… nope. Definitely not envy. Pity, more like.

lakdav.3694:

What is done is done though, no point in going back and pretending that we never were the leader of DE2. What i propose is making DE2 part of the world too, one capable group out of many, that happens to have the second in command of the Pact as its leader. We can be the middleman between the Pact (just one of the other capable groups) and DE2. If possible, our characters can also be the middleman with groups of our personal stories too. Whatever makes it feel more natural to see masses of other people/players roam around the same heavily hostile environs as we, the supposed heroes do.

Why do we need to be a middleman for DE2 at all? Why bother? What do those five people offer that isn’t accomplished by the wider organisation of the Pact? Honestly, the last time we did anything with them they were a liability (one broke a leg, one almost died, one abandoned their mission to play nurse and the third went into a reckless and emotional rage, that’s the kitten that gets people killed) and even if they weren’t, we know Scarlet was defeated by an army, not by five. What place did DE2 have in that story at all? Why wouldn’t we have NPCs (biconics included) that do what they did in the Personal Story – they have a role in the world, they deliver exposition, give context to the story and the players do the heavy lifting. Have the story recognise that accomplishments aren’t the work of Kiel or the Biconics, nor are they the work of a “leader”. Scarlet was taken down by the heroes of Tyria – thousands of them. The Molten Facilities were raided by the Vigil and thousands of heroes (two of which happen to be Rox and Braham but they aren’t more special than anyone else).

Going forward (or even looking back) I don’t see why we should be spending time with the Biconics at all. What do they offer that the Pact doesn’t? The Pact has the knowledge of the Priory, the connections of the Order of Whispers and the military strategy and presence of the Vigil. As a high ranking Pact member, why would I bother talking to Braham when I can talk to Wynett, Doern or Laranthir? If I wanted to investigate corruption in the Ministry, absolutely Marjory is the perfect NPC to carry that story (I really hope they reserve her for stories like this, not use her as an “apply to all scenarios” hero). If I need a contact in the gladium quarters of the Black Citadel Rox makes sense. If I’m heading off to investigate the mysteries of the Maguuma jungle, the only biconic I’d be interested in seeing is maybe Taimi.

BTW I liked having Caladbolg. I wish you could craft it.

I’ll agree that the biconics didn’t serve much as an integral part of the story, but they did fill a very necessary role- recurring characters, when they’re good (and I do believe this set are), are needed to invite emotional investment in what was otherwise a disjointed, often whacky (more frequently than would’ve been healthy), continent spanning series of events. I can’t speak for others, but they were the only thing that pulled me back after the June-August releases left me fighting an urge to throw up my hands in disgust and abandon the Living World entirely. Without the biconics in season 1, the disconnect with the existing world would have been nigh-total, and the only personifying elements to what would otherwise be a bimonthly rinse-and-repeat wade through a sea of mobs would’ve been Kiel and Scarlet. Think about how much worse it would’ve been if we had to stake our investment on them.

None of that is to say that the story wouldn’t have been better, or can’t be better going forward, would that kind of character be given a role to play. I like having them around, and think they need to be around, but when they don’t bring anything in particular to the table, or worse, are shoehorned into a release in what feels like a ham-fisted attempt to say “don’t you dare forget about me!”, they become competition to the story, not a part of it. I think we need to see the biconic story arcs through to their end, but I hope from Season 3 onward that concern is taken into account at the drawing board.

Shiren.9532:

Why do we need to be a middleman for DE2 at all? Why bother? What do those five people offer that isn’t accomplished by the wider organisation of the Pact? Honestly, the last time we did anything with them they were a liability (one broke a leg, one almost died, one abandoned their mission to play nurse and the third went into a reckless and emotional rage, that’s the kitten that gets people killed) and even if they weren’t, we know Scarlet was defeated by an army, not by five.

Um, what? How is a BATTLEFIELD injury a liability? It’s not like they tripped alarms or stumbled and broke their legs. They got injured from an explosion. A pact team would’ve encountered the SAME EXACT THING.

Broke leg, nearly died. Those are battlefield things, it’s only a liability if they had a long mission ahead and needed to move fast. They did not. “Abandoned the mission to play nurse” Oh, so Rox shouldn’t have tried to save Marjorys life and get braham and Marjory both ready to move? She should’ve went “Lulfail. die now.” No. A Pact team would’ve had their medical trained person do the same thing.

“Flying into a rage.” That one you kinda half have a point, but that was because Kasmeer wasn’t as experienced. In the lore, six people were in that room killing Scarlet. not a thousand people.

What place did DE2 have in that story at all? Why wouldn’t we have NPCs (biconics included) that do what they did in the Personal Story – they have a role in the world, they deliver exposition, give context to the story and the players do the heavy lifting. Have the story recognise that accomplishments aren’t the work of Kiel or the Biconics, nor are they the work of a “leader”. Scarlet was taken down by the heroes of Tyria – thousands of them. The Molten Facilities were raided by the Vigil and thousands of heroes (two of which happen to be Rox and Braham but they aren’t more special than anyone else).

I highly doubt they’ll say that thousands of heroes raided the molten facility, or killed scarlet.

Going forward (or even looking back) I don’t see why we should be spending time with the Biconics at all. What do they offer that the Pact doesn’t? The Pact has the knowledge of the Priory, the connections of the Order of Whispers and the military strategy and presence of the Vigil. As a high ranking Pact member, why would I bother talking to Braham when I can talk to Wynett, Doern or Laranthir? If I wanted to investigate corruption in the Ministry, absolutely Marjory is the perfect NPC to carry that story (I really hope they reserve her for stories like this, not use her as an “apply to all scenarios” hero). If I need a contact in the gladium quarters of the Black Citadel Rox makes sense. If I’m heading off to investigate the mysteries of the Maguuma jungle, the only biconic I’d be interested in seeing is maybe Taimi.

The pact is busy in Orr, rebuilding their forces, cleaning the place up, and planning their next move. They wouldn’t be out wandering and heading to anyplace that seems like it has trouble. Fitting if your living story is focused on the dragons, but something like scarlet? Makes no sense for Laranthir, Wyneet, Doern, or the other major Pact officers to be dealing with it.

Just as I wanted to make a topic for pos/neg-feedback on season 1/GW2-story, I find this gem.

I feel the story in GW2 lacks something.
Not that it ain’t good, but I’ve got a good example about what I mean:

(Warning, Spoilers.)

I didn’t play GW1 much longer than I played GW2 until now, but when I go to Gwens grave in Ebon Hawk I still get wet eyes when I hear that flute. When I see that red Iris on the ground, I think of pre searing Ascalon in GW1 and Gwen hopping around.
I think of the little Gwen I picked flowers for, the adult Gwen I fought aside and heard the story of her oddysee with the charr, I saw her develop in the game, putting her hate aside to fight with Pyre. I helped Thackerey to win her heart.
I’ll never forget Vekks breakdown when his father died.

In GW2 the former members of Destiny’s Edge become your mentors, you fight along them in the story-dungeons, you reunite them to kill Zhaitan and then…Splat!
“Here, take these new guys who are more or less tied to the previous guys, because you won’t see much of the old ones anymore!”
Rox and company are good characters, but I don’t understand that decision.
I don’t really think it was the money for the VA’s, since Scarlet was voiced by the VA of the main-pony in My Little Pony, which must have cost a good deal.

To be honest, aside from the big main story-arc I’d like to see some more stuff attaching us to the characters.
Multiple ideas come to mind:
-Helping Rox with her Legion-business, being toured around by her and meeting Rytlock in the process, putting in a good word for her. More of that.
-Helping Kasmeer to find a present for Jory in a tour through Tyria, finally finding something in an old shop in the middle of some small settlement.
-Visiting Braham in the Shiverpeaks to help out with mundane tasks, fighting off a small threat and being in the middle of a mother/son-argument with him and Eir.
-Playing some kind of big brother/sister for Taimi in some college-business. Maybe even some bonus here if your character is asuran since he/she won the snaff price.

Regarding the discussion of being the single hero of everything or just one hero amongs many, I like both. However, the world should react to it.
Being THE hero should feel like it, with npcs recognizing you on the street, kids asking you to sign their toy and whatever else you could do. If you’re just one of many, there should be iconic npcs who take the charge and give you the feel that you’re doing this for this fantasy-world you’re diving into, not just because you just so happen to play the game atm.

tekfan.3179:

Just as I wanted to make a topic for pos/neg-feedback on season 1/GW2-story, I find this gem. /snip.

Absolutely. Going from DE1 to DE2 offers very little in the way of attachment. I feel like smaller scale story arcs needed to be employed in MMOs because people get new jobs, move on to new parts of the team etc. and new writers want to tell new stories. Using story arcs that last a year make more sense because then we don’t run into cliff hangers that never see resolution like at the end of GW:EN and Utopia never coming out.

Having a persistent lore mystery in your tales is one thing. Leaving stories unfinished is another. It’s hard to get a real attachment as a consumer of entertainment when so many tales get left dangling or characters get shoved into the background for so long.

i always thought that mmorpgs were born of a desire to share the typical experience of an rpg with as many people as possible. a desire to receive recognition from other players for you heroic deeds rather than the npcs. i mean back in the day it was single player rpgs and tabletop rpgs. thats about it.

in the single player ones you get craploads of recognition from the npcs with little to none from players. you are THEE one and only player. you are the unique element the drives the story. the story and your role in it are normally set firmly in place with little to no player influence on outcome, other than progression through combat and exploration.

in tabletop rpgs you get recognition from other players as well as npcs but in a small intimate group setting. in this type of rpg the recognition you receive can be more personal and dynamic. consequences both far reaching trivial. but at the same time everyone at the table wants their time to shine too (even the GM). there are many things now driving the story. the story can now continue without you and events that occur are not the results of your actions and decisions alone. the spot light has been split. now there exists a slight competition for recognition. to make your character stand out in situations that contribute to the major consequences of the story you must take action. the chances of you getting the coup de grace on the final boss is greatly diminished, however if your magic is the only reason the fighter got close enough to finish the boss, you can feel satisfied that a portion of the glory is yours.

when it comes to mmorgs the spotlight is more fragmented. in my experience with tabletop rpgs, i have found that the amount of personal recognition that can be given with decent quality has severe diminishing returns as more players are added. unless one player is favored over others. that is why we typically see linear storylines in mmos with little player choice and consequence, much like their singleplayer counterparts. unlike singleplayer rpgs we need to take part in events as they unfold or be forced out of the timeline. receiving recognition, both from npcs in terms of story and from players in terms of accomplishment requires action. if you dont play the story others will. like tabletop rpgs the plot will advance even of you do nothing. but if you choose to participate there is a certain quality of recognition that you cannot expect. you cannot expect the villain to remember the snarky things you said and the mocking tone in your voice as you had him hauled away in shackles. and you cant expect the king to be absolutely certain that you were the one who personally slapped the shackles on the villain or that you were even present for his downfall. however you can expect fellow players to be in awe of your dps, you can expect noobs to drool over rewards you get from tough enounters.

you can expect the occaisional pat on the back from a prominent npc, but you must expect everyone to get the exact same pat on the back (provided similar levels of combat and exploration are employed). if encounters are self contained and episodic this is fine. but if you want events to be connected to an overarching plot it gets very difficult. an easy way to provide connection between events players participate in without sacrificing too much believability is supporting npcs. in my opinion supporting npcs are a very forgivable crutch when attempting to hit that happy medium of being the hero among heros. acting as witness to events experienced by thousands of faceless people removed from time and mortality. they can even be quite endearing. i guess what im trying to say is you kind of sacrifice some of your importance when you agree to play with others who wish to have fun. and if you feel like Mr. Prominent npc is hogging all of your limelight maybe take solace in the fact that they would never be prominent if there wasn’t players willing to share the glory when it comes time for combat, exploration and story with friends!

I always found that i liked stories that have you as the hero being someone larger than life but also, at the end, no one is quite sure who you are. That’s why i like back reference – Revan, whose true identity is unknown, is revered as an almost godlike figure. The Nerevarine is considered to be among the most powerful mortals of his time but whose original name has faded into obscurity. it sets the mood that heroes can be anyone and anything – any background.

That’s perhaps why i both like and hate the guild wars storylines. others gain the credit for your action, but only a select few people know the truth. from them, your legend lives on as the stuff of myths. The group of heroes who escaped ascalon after the searing and become the chosen – who defeated the mursaat and the titans. Others have been known – cynn, mhenlo, devona – and yet you, one of the most capable of the group, has faded into obscurity by all but the heroes themselves. It makes me wonder sometimes if the hero intentionally made this happen – that they wanted this to happen so that perhaps they could return to a normal life. Perhaps it was because they wanted to remain unknown to their enemies in the far future. Maybe even that they simply did not want the limelight for doing what simply came to them naturally – that to them it was about as praise-worthy as taking out the trash. In the end, the people who matter know the truth. the hero could have been a god, a legend without compare, a mighty king or emperor, but in the end all they wanted was peace. In the end, all they wanted was to put all of that hero business behind them and go back to as normal a life as they can.

this is just all my two cents.

The absolutely best written NPC stories in-game were the Charr’s “father” options (Shaman and Gladium) and, of course, Tybalt.

I don’t feel any bond with Living Story characters really. Same goes for Destiny’s Edge. Yes, we see them a lot, but I don’t remember any particular moments or actions, I cannot quote their talks. I really feel like a in PUG.

Same goes for antagonists. The reason why so many people played for an entire Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft wasn’t even the parricular mechanics or content.

It was the feel of Arthas everywhere around. He had very well-written story presented to you during leveling, dungeons. Even players who had never played Frozen Throne had a chance to meet him in couple stages.

You could feel his presence everywhere, meet him during quests and finaly, when it came to fighting him, it was in legendary scenery, with legendary enemy that everyone knows.

If we want Elder Dragons, break their lore. Let them speak, present themselves and their power. We don’t want to speak to braindead minions another time and then finish off some dragon you see for the first time and has no connection with the character.

Make them have true personalities and flaws. “Mindless force of nature eating magic” isn’t interesting in the current form.

Carlin Sanders.3587:

In the end, all they wanted was to put all of that hero business behind them and go back to as normal a life as they can.

this is just all my two cents.

Just as a sidenote: the above was more or less confirmed during the winds of change campaign.

Especially in this dialog with a woman named Xin Ji.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ministry_of_Oppression

Biconics
Recently i got my hands on Mass Effect (3), which puts you into a similiar situation.
You have some characters following you around and you are able to interact with them in certain situations and they will coment on their own if they are near.
They feel alive and have a purpose.

Now i know bringing something like that over to an MMO is not really possible (well SWOTOR might beg to differ, but you got constant helper there and not roaming in the world) or easy without heavy instances and splitting dialog trees with different “endings”…

Right now the GW2 story is straight forward and they actually took a step back from their PS aproach which, honestly, diluted the experience, but was still interesting if you played through them multiple times.

The Biconics right now are more fanservice then serviceable to the story in my opinion.
They are recogniseable characters but in S1 there should have been multiple other characters be able to fill their places, as the only one actually be able to something was Majory and everyone else was just tagging along after their initial introduction.

On their own good characters. In the grander scope there should have been people who actually knew what they are doing…

In my opinion we certainly need to step back with the Biconic and let them live their life, instead of forcing them somehow into the plot and as such in the players face.
Their implementation so far just does not feel natural and subsequently offputting (at least for me)

Overall Story
It has been talked about alot. I think the writers now have a better understanding then what they had at the beginning and middle of the LS1, as i believe the writing got a lot better.

If there is one flaw the S1 had, then it is pacing.
A lot of things should have been introduced earlier, so that it does not fit weird or out of place.
My main gripe here is mostly with the Watchknights at that point, because up till today they just feel like something for Scarlet to pervert, instead of something meaningful.
Sure they stick around now for the festival, but their initial introduction was really disapointing (more so since i like the idea)

personaly i like stories where things are introduced mostly in the background early on and then they all fall into place like a good puzzle.

S1 had some of these elements, however they never felt right (for me). I always felt that we are still missing some crucials things (up to this day) and the fragmentet storytelling over several media outside the game (blogs, interviews, forum, etc…) did not help.

Scarlet´s story was very interesting at first, however as soon as she was revealed, it all crumbled down and somehow never fully rekindled for me and by judging the forums many others as well.

To many infos came out way to late and it ended up creating a Tyria that was just “dumb”.

While i love a good mystery it does have to make sense. S1 suffered from to much withheld information just for the sake of a “mystery”, which in the end was rather meh.

The whole story inr retrospect felt very random at some points and could only be explains through theories and “writers-intervention” to the point where we ended up with some “kinda-explanation”, which are still a bit iffy.

While you cannot please everyone, the LS is a traditional straight forward story.
It does not involve branching paths or anything that alters its course drasticly.
It has a beginning a middle and an end which will be the same for everyone.
if they are able to include some personal stuff, it would be awesome.
However at the moment it is “just” (i do not say it is easy, i am not that naive or blind. it is still a ton of work) a straight forward story.
The only thing different is the way it is delivered. Which is through many different assets per patch.
These assets and infos have to be paced.

If they are able to create a good flow there, then S2 will certainly be phenomenal and i think they are going into the right direction there.

Rym.1469:

The absolutely best written NPC stories in-game were the Charr’s “father” options (Shaman and Gladium) and, of course, Tybalt.

Hehe . . . Tybalt’s story best-written . . . heh.

The further I get from it and the more I get a chance to think on it, the less it interests me and the more it stands on the strength of the character and acting rather than on the story itself. I like Tybalt (though I like Forgal more) but his story isn’t all that good.

See, I found the story of Falcon Company far outweighed Tybalt in my memory. Not for the lost sister, but because it basically highlighted someone who had no good choices ahead of them and how it changed them. Also, Logan did not suck dolyak toes.

Angel McCoy.1832:

Just wanted to let you know that I’m reading this with great interest and even shared it with the team. I can’t tell you anything specific about Season 2, but I can say that many of you will be pleased with it. Thanks for your ideas and opinions and respectful discussion.

I am really looking forward to how it pans out. Thanks for taking the time to post in this thread and thanks for reading it

I would also like to suggest that before the game goes into maintenance mode that we get some sort of final resolution. Like a good novel —or set of novels in a series-- a good finish is so important. There is nothing worse than the unfinished and dangling threads of a tale woven poorly.

What I really love(d) are the short stories from the blog posts. The only thing about those I really couldn’t stand was that they weren’t in the game. If you read those you obviously see that the writers are good at what they do, but the writing that makes it into the game seems to be really cut down to the most important lines of a longer narrative.

From what I’ve got from some of the responses if seems to me that Anet has high standards in it’s voice-acted storytelling. What I would like to say to the responsible ones: I don’t mind if a lot of stuff isn’t voice acted, it’s really NOT immersion breaking to me that I have to read some stuff instead of listening to it.

It would be awesome if more of the writing makes it into the game, I know that the writers are absolutely able to provide that but somehow between the game and the notice board it seems to get lost somewhere. :-/

Kalavier.1097:

Um, what? How is a BATTLEFIELD injury a liability? It’s not like they tripped alarms or stumbled and broke their legs. They got injured from an explosion. A pact team would’ve encountered the SAME EXACT THING.

An experienced team may have encountered the same thing, but maybe they wouldn’t have. It’s possible a more experienced group of adventurers would have used aegis, stability, mist form, distortion, black powder etc before going in for a stomp :P. A liability is something which is a disadvantage, someone who can’t fight and actually needs to be protected is very much a disadvantage.

A Pact team would’ve had their medical trained person do the same thing.

I viewed it as the mission is what matters most. A Pact team would prioritise the mission over the individual (this a recurring issue for me with the biconic’s characterisation – they feel like a naive child’s heroic team, where friendship and love are most important). You do what you need to get the job done, even if it costs lives. That’s what happened in the fight against Zhaitan . In this specific case, Rox had a mission to stop Scarlet. In that moment, stopping Scarlet was the most important thing. Put it this way, what if Rox’s decision to aid Braham and Marjory saved their lives but the PC and Kasmeer failed to finish Scarlet off? Scarlet goes unstopped, she either escapes or has another chance to kill everyone else. It all works out in the end because it’s a story and the writers decide who wins and loses, but just like Logan abandoning his mission to help Jennah resulted in terrible things, Rox choosing to help Braham and Marjory could have resulted in the deaths of the PC, Kasmeer and possibly everyone fighting for Lion’s Arch. If I can choose five people in Tyria to take down an Elder Dragon I’m going to choose the five who will do it at all costs, even their or their friend’s lives.

In the lore, six people were in that room killing Scarlet. not a thousand people.

I highly doubt they’ll say that thousands of heroes raided the molten facility, or killed scarlet.

Why couldn’t Scarlet die on the platform? That’s how she was defeated, not in some room where we were handed a scripted stomp. Nothing that happens in that room takes place unless an entire army defeats her outside. Each player chooses to enter the room but only one character is recognised by the story (thousands of times). It doesn’t have to be that way.

BTW there were multiple Molten Facilities. I don’t know what the official lore stance is, but as far as I can guess, the facilities were taken down by an army of players and Vigil, Braham and Rox are just two of many people who entered them.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I’ll agree that the biconics didn’t serve much as an integral part of the story, but they did fill a very necessary role- recurring characters, when they’re good (and I do believe this set are), are needed to invite emotional investment in what was otherwise a disjointed, often whacky (more frequently than would’ve been healthy), continent spanning series of events. I can’t speak for others, but they were the only thing that pulled me back after the June-August releases left me fighting an urge to throw up my hands in disgust and abandon the Living World entirely. Without the biconics in season 1, the disconnect with the existing world would have been nigh-total, and the only personifying elements to what would otherwise be a bimonthly rinse-and-repeat wade through a sea of mobs would’ve been Kiel and Scarlet. Think about how much worse it would’ve been if we had to stake our investment on them.

I don’t have a problem with recurring NPCs, I actually enjoy them. Like you pointed out, I don’t like it when the NPCs exist for the sake of existing. I believe the majority of Season One the biconics competed with the story. They upstaged characters that should have taken the spotlight (Kiel leaving the Breachmaker is one example, the biconics being the only NPCs at marionette is another, the fact that our Orders did participate in the story, yet despite our membership in the Orders we spent all our time speaking or reporting to biconics instead of the organisations we joined to get stuff done). Even now the biconics overshadow the Bazaar release. While they are a strength of season one, they are also a weakness. I think recurring characters are important, I also think it’s necessary that they serve the story (and the lore) well, not the other way around.

Shiren.9532:

Kalavier.1097:

Um, what? How is a BATTLEFIELD injury a liability? It’s not like they tripped alarms or stumbled and broke their legs. They got injured from an explosion. A pact team would’ve encountered the SAME EXACT THING.

An experienced team may have encountered the same thing, but maybe they wouldn’t have. It’s possible a more experienced group of adventurers would have used aegis, stability, mist form, distortion, black powder etc before going in for a stomp :P. A liability is something which is a disadvantage, someone who can’t fight and actually needs to be protected is very much a disadvantage.

Game mechanics don’t transfer to lore 100%. a black powder cloud wouldn’t stop an explosion from flinging you across the room. There is literally nothing different they would experience in the fight.

A Pact team would’ve had their medical trained person do the same thing.

I viewed it as the mission is what matters most. A Pact team would prioritise the mission over the individual (this a recurring issue for me with the biconic’s characterisation – they feel like a naive child’s heroic team, where friendship and love are most important). You do what you need to get the job done, even if it costs lives. That’s what happened in the fight against Zhaitan . In this specific case, Rox had a mission to stop Scarlet. In that moment, stopping Scarlet was the most important thing. Put it this way, what if Rox’s decision to aid Braham and Marjory saved their lives but the PC and Kasmeer failed to finish Scarlet off? Scarlet goes unstopped, she either escapes or has another chance to kill everyone else. It all works out in the end because it’s a story and the writers decide who wins and loses, but just like Logan abandoning his mission to help Jennah resulted in terrible things, Rox choosing to help Braham and Marjory could have resulted in the deaths of the PC, Kasmeer and possibly everyone fighting for Lion’s Arch. If I can choose five people in Tyria to take down an Elder Dragon I’m going to choose the five who will do it at all costs, even their or their friend’s lives.

Scarlet was DYING. It’s doubtful she’d escape, even with the airship starting to crumble. Either way, I’m fairly sure almost every military would have their MEDIC try to save lives, complaining about the medic DOING THEIR JOB as a liability is stupid. The airship was exploding, Scarlet was going to die anyway.

Logan in Arah storymode stayed back because without somebody staying back, the mission would fail, FOR SURE. Rox healing Marjory didn’t make failure a sure thing.

A pact team would have the medic treat the wounded. The pact had a field hospital in straits which shipped in wounded all the time. Orr is not a friendly place, yet they took the time to helicopter wounded to the hospital. They wouldn’t abandoned people they can save still.

I loooooooooooooooooove this game! It’s beautiful! And big! And epic! In terms of wanting to be hero/not a hero….

I am going to use an example from Lord of the Rings.

Aragorn is the embodiment of the ideal Leader. He is humble, yearns earnestly to return home to Gondor, but is deeply afraid of his own legacy. What if he makes the same mistake as his forefathers? But as the books progress he proves over and over again that he is his own man. He states overtly that he doesn’t have all the answers and defers to the wisdom of others. He brings out the best in each member of the Fellowship. And he isn’t a ‘useless npc’ – he kicks some major kitten in Moria and without his expertise the party would not have lasted.

I would follow Aragorn to the ends of [Middle]earth.

I want to be in a group like that. No single character is a hero, but each has a unique strength that it brings to the fold. Each has a personal downfall and struggles with their own weakness throughout the journey. Each character is a hero and without every single one of those characters the Quest would have failed.

In my mind, that is the middle ground for PC characters in MMOs. We cannot save the world ourselves, but we each bring a unique strength and perspective when we need to step up to the plate.

I think the biconics are beginning to look like that, so that’s a good start. Keep pushing them.

Silalus.8760:

But one of the best examples I can point to was the Wrath of the Lich King expansion in WoW.

This is a beautiful example. It was a point where the things the PC was doing were absolutely evil. Torture? Yup. And we signed up for that by rolling a death knight. And the decisions we made haunted us through the rest of the expansion.

Son of Svanir

Sacrilege! We gave that wolf enough strength to rule ten packs and twist them all to Dragon’s will.

In my personal opinion ‘twist’ was the wrong word to use here. Earlier in the dialogue the Son of Svanir says the wolf was ‘blessed’ by Jormag. Then he uses the word ‘twist’. That’s a bit contradictory and this happens a lot with the script. Either the Sons believe they are doing something morally good or they don’t. In my opinion, villains that believe what they are doing is justifiable are much scarier than villains who are doing evil for the sake of being evil.

Example: Norman Bates. #1 scariest villain ever. He knows what he’s doing is bad but… he can justify it. And he experiences inner conflict.

I’m hoping more future villains go through something like this. I enjoyed killing Scarlet, but I would have liked to watch her transform further, even if it meant watching or discovering more clips from the past. Her journal was a good way to go, so maybe expand on that in the future? In short, fewer static villains and more villains with complex stories and personalities that we can discover as we progress.

saye.9304:

later in personal story you need pact and the sylvari hero with power of cleansing ore( i forgot his name) and their ships to weaken zaitan greatly and finally finish him off.

I do want to point out that the fact that you cannot remember his name is important. I felt Trahearne is very bland and entirely forgettable. He is, in my mind, the representation of the game developer ushering my character along. I have no sense of his previous struggles as a scholar. No sense of his fear – his voice NEVER indicates fear – and no sense of pain or internal conflict from him. In fact, when Zott or the other named NPCs die, he doesn’t express remorse in any meaningful way. His tone is exactly the same as when he gets the sword from the pale tree (it’s the military, no one has time to really mourn, but please at least sound upset). I can’t quite call him sociopathic because my limited understanding of sociopaths is that they can pretend to have emotions.

That said, I started crying when Agent Zott died. I actually started crying. I tend to be overly emotional around story anyway, but I completely flipped out. Zott and Elli were probably in my top 5 favorite characters besides Carys and Tegwen and, of course, Tybalt gets #1.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

What I really love(d) are the short stories from the blog posts. The only thing about those I really couldn’t stand was that they weren’t in the game.

I would like to see a lore journal where I can access posts like this. Maybe an Asura Infocube that collects and gathers data as scholars in the Priory dig stuff up. Make a dedicated space in the website with a collection of these posts, but please also make it so I can reference them while in game without having to alt-tab.

Something I wanted to make clear:

1) After you (the devs) have released the S1 recap video, I noticed how many nice things we got. So why didn’t I feel like that in the first place? Why did I think the story was bad, awful even at some moments? I think the reason is because the story that was been told was seperated in tiny bits in a two-week rhythm.
That’s the reason why I liked the personal story more, even though is was worse in pretty much everything (that however should not meant that the PS was bad, S1 was just better, exept for the 2-week-rhythm).
I really dislike that the only thing we got when scarlet conquered LA was a one minute short video. After that we were rescuing millions of people for the next two weaks. After that we’ve somehow, magically stopped her attack and killed her two weaks long. I would really want a story that is developing all the time, where we don’t just get an update every two weaks, that drastically changes everything. Seperate the storytelling, atleast a bit, from the content updates.

2) I for one would be okay with me being not the “hero”. It is pretty awful when I’m shown as a leader but being mute all the time. And it’s also only “here is our hero” all the time. I know that is pretty impossible to do, but I have a name, and I would like to be called by that name.

Angel McCoy.1832:

RoyHarmon.5398:

While I understand the obvious technical reasons for it, I’m still a little bothered by the fact that we’re never mentioned by name. Even as Ellen Kiel introduces us to the Zephyrite leader along with all the others, each of the NPCs is mentioned by name. The PC, however, is “And their leader.”

LOL! I know what you mean. You have no idea how hard it is to try to make that sound natural when we can’t use the PC’s name in voiced content. I could write a whole dissertation on it. Believe me, I wish we had that technology. It’s not an easy thing to create though. Quite complex, and very unlikely to ever sound natural. I think it would end up being more immersion breaking than the nicknames we use for your character now.

P.S. You may feel you don’t matter to the game world, but you do matter to us at ArenaNet.

I think the best idea would be to give the player a nickname (based on gender, race and class, mixed with some RNG and several nicknames for each constellation). Southpark: The stick of truth did this and I think it worked out very well.

P.S. Please, tell this your coworkers, just participate more like this in all kinds of threads, the forums would be so much more enjoyable with devs actually responding to questions.

Jaken.6801:

Biconics
Recently i got my hands on Mass Effect (3), which puts you into a similiar situation.
You have some characters following you around and you are able to interact with them in certain situations and they will coment on their own if they are near.
They feel alive and have a purpose.

They did this in the personal story quite a bit. I actually prefer having the characters provide exposition in the background while I play, I’m too impatient to stand there and chat to them.

One of the things that added to the character development in ME was having some quests specifically focused around the sidekicks. (Although I think ME2 overdid it a bit).

Wanderer.3248:

One of the things that added to the character development in ME was having some quests specifically focused around the sidekicks. (Although I think ME2 overdid it a bit).

That’s a Bioware thing, which was done in Neverwinter Nights (both of them). And I agree, it did much to deepen the characters when I encountered it there.. Even the death-loving evil dwarven monk.

The other game I had that come up was in Baldur’s Gate – though that game had Minsc, so it was automatically ahead of many many other games in terms of fun characters.

Just listen . . .

I hope that at some point we’ll see some clear differences in dialogue options in regards to Charisma, Ferocity and Dignity. My necromancer has ferocity completely maxed. I think my dialogue options should be a little bit less friendly than they’ve been so far.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Wanderer.3248:

One of the things that added to the character development in ME was having some quests specifically focused around the sidekicks. (Although I think ME2 overdid it a bit).

That’s a Bioware thing, which was done in Neverwinter Nights (both of them). And I agree, it did much to deepen the characters when I encountered it there.. Even the death-loving evil dwarven monk.

The other game I had that come up was in Baldur’s Gate – though that game had Minsc, so it was automatically ahead of many many other games in terms of fun characters.

Just listen . . .

Hah… that brings back memories

However yeah. Since we just hop in and out of “their” story and they are mostly there to tell us how to feel (since it is an MMO and thus it is hard to convey certain feelings, without getting into hassle with the “gameplay” or taking it away from us… though they did it actually too much in S1), they do not feel like they are part of a group with my character, but we play catch up with them all the time.

And yes MQM, i hope we get some splitting dialog trees again, with hidden lines based on character and deeds in the world (OoW needs more sneaky codes)

Btw. while we are at gameplay and allowing us to have control or not:
Please allow us to fight the big baddy this time.
Not able to pull Scarlet down from her high horse the whole time buggs me totaly.
Sure i stabbed her with a dancing Quaggan, but i never actually punched her face in.
neither in the Queens Pavillion, where she jumped arround in god mode, nor do i count a crippled half dead body who just waits for the final strike…

If the enemy is “mortal” then allow us to hurt him. Hurt, but not break him.
Like the Joker in the Dark Knight. He was hurt, but was clearly having all the cards in his hand and more up his sleave.

Imagine us beating on Scarlet in the Queens Pavillion and actually see her life go down slowly, push her into the middle, with supposedly no way to run and then she still gets away…
That would have made me so angry, but in a good way, since it would have shown that she is smart and plans ahead, instead of a god-mode charakter.

All the way, the world has to feel like it really reacts to some things.
In small and in big ways.
I would really like changes which apear after a certain amount of time, spreading from the orgin point.
Like, if we go to people in charge (and a powerfull hero we can always barge in to the race leaders at any time, naturaly), we are able to hear their opinion on the matter and if they want to react (or what`s their excuse to why they are not)

Jaken.6801:

Btw. while we are at gameplay and allowing us to have control or not:
Please allow us to fight the big baddy this time.
Not able to pull Scarlet down from her high horse the whole time buggs me totaly.
Sure i stabbed her with a dancing Quaggan, but i never actually punched her face in.
neither in the Queens Pavillion, where she jumped arround in god mode, nor do i count a crippled half dead body who just waits for the final strike…

If the enemy is “mortal” then allow us to hurt him. Hurt, but not break him.
Like the Joker in the Dark Knight. He was hurt, but was clearly having all the cards in his hand and more up his sleave.

Imagine us beating on Scarlet in the Queens Pavillion and actually see her life go down slowly, push her into the middle, with supposedly no way to run and then she still gets away…
That would have made me so angry, but in a good way, since it would have shown that she is smart and plans ahead, instead of a god-mode charakter.

This. So much this.

I found it to be incredibly frustrating to not be able to at least get in a few hits on her when there was clearly opportunity, instead of being able to just watch her saunter out while holding the idiot ball (such as the instance in the top of the Tower of Nightmares). Even if she managed to get away through some clever scheme of hers.

Personally, if there had been cases where we seemed to have had her and at our mercy only to find out she still had the upper hand and slipped away? That would have given far more drive to want to nab her in the end. Instead of just feeling like ‘oh let’s just get Scarlet so we can be done with her’ there would have actually been investment in a personal vendetta against her. That would have been one thing that could have made that LS more compelling to me.

And no more villains monologueing, be it before they vanish, or in the form of a hologram. I hate that. Only bad villains spew monologues.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

And no more villains monologueing, be it before they vanish, or in the form of a hologram. I hate that. Only bad villains spew monologues.

Careful with that universal assertion . . . that is the safest way to monologue, after all. So if you’re going to do it, best to do it in a way you’re not leaving yourself completely open.

(Note: There are villains who monologue who are not terrible villains. But in the end, it is a convention of storytelling which is well-known and can either be accepted or mocked. Back to BG? Jon Irenicus mocks it, continuously.)

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

And no more villains monologueing, be it before they vanish, or in the form of a hologram. I hate that. Only bad villains spew monologues.

As said, that’s actually a smart villain who does it with a hologram, because that keeps them safe from attacks.

Her “godmode” was just a one person teleport which she didn’t use in the last fight. I am angry because she wanted to tell something important and didn’t do it the first date right after she appeared and in the end were I thought that there will be finally some answers, there was Braham to which I had less interaction than with Scarlet.

I would like a deadlock dialogue. A situation were she cannot kill me and I cannot kill her and then we chat. I mean, she introduced herself to the world and short after that I introduced Braham, Frostbite, Rox and me to her, but she just set me on a list of unimportant people who needs to be reminded how unimportant they are. Then forgot about me, even if I hunted her down until her inevitable end.

She probably could have convinced me to change to her side, because there is something very wrong in Tyria. An engineer that goes that way of madness while working on engineering shows that her insanity was quite limited. So, what drove the engineer mad?

Horst Hortensie.5420:

So, what drove the engineer mad?

She saw the script for next season on Game of Thrones and realized “oh no way can we compete with that, they got the episode titled ‘The Viper and the Mountain’ and we got silly hairstyles and Taimi”.

Jaken.6801:

Btw. while we are at gameplay and allowing us to have control or not:
Please allow us to fight the big baddy this time.

If the enemy is “mortal” then allow us to hurt him. Hurt, but not break him.
Like the Joker in the Dark Knight. He was hurt, but was clearly having all the cards in his hand and more up his sleave.

Like the Joker, Scarlet was never meant to be a fighter. And in the Arkham games, he tends to avoid direct combat, and quite frankly, he’s not good at it. The scene in Arkham origins where you do beat up the Joker is a bit disturbing really, since physically the batman is so much stronger than the Joker.

I don’t think a straight up fight with Scarlet would have made much sense either. Like the Joker she was a thinker and a schemer, not a fighter. She had thugs to do the fighting for her.

I don’t think all MMO enemies have to be great at combat. It’s kind of sad for the genre if everything has to devolve into violence.

Wanderer.3248:

Jaken.6801:

Btw. while we are at gameplay and allowing us to have control or not:
Please allow us to fight the big baddy this time.

If the enemy is “mortal” then allow us to hurt him. Hurt, but not break him.
Like the Joker in the Dark Knight. He was hurt, but was clearly having all the cards in his hand and more up his sleave.

Like the Joker, Scarlet was never meant to be a fighter. And in the Arkham games, he tends to avoid direct combat, and quite frankly, he’s not good at it. The scene in Arkham origins where you do beat up the Joker is a bit disturbing really, since physically the batman is so much stronger than the Joker.

I don’t think a straight up fight with Scarlet would have made much sense either. Like the Joker she was a thinker and a schemer, not a fighter. She had thugs to do the fighting for her.

I don’t think all MMO enemies have to be great at combat. It’s kind of sad for the genre if everything has to devolve into violence.

Also in one of our first encounters with her, we actually fought and beat Scarlet before she escaped (three times no less).

She was insane, but smart. After that she avoided direct combat.

@Angel: I finished the first episode. I really enjoyed it. This is the first story piece that I have been really interested in so far in the game. You all did a wonderful job. Everything from the pacing to the dialog to the action was top notch. I am hoping it continues to be this engaging. On “Points of Interest” I was hoping you all would talk about the obvious Easter Egg which was the Realm of Torment map in Scarlet’s room. What is up with that? Is that something we will be finding out more about later or was it just that, an Easter Egg that really doesn’t have any significance beyond just being in the room as a conversation piece? Anyways, thanks for the fantastic episode and keep up the good work.

PS None of it came off as melodramatic. I liked that there wasn’t any fluffy romance stuff between Jory and Kass and it was all about the actual story beats.

I agree, really great pacing in the new episode!

On a sidenote regarding the (old!) discussion above, I’ll also chime in for the ‘one of many’ crowd. While of course I think it’s nice to be the story hero sometimes (though difficult in a game with lots of players!), I enjoy it way more when my character is one of many (and that’s also how I subtly change it in my head, haha – roleplay habit!). For example, instead of being always best friends with the Order/Pact/something commander, I actually prefer to be ordered around sometimes! To me, that feels way more like being part of something greater. “Go here, do this!” It makes me feel much more immersed into the atmosphere of the world. And I think that within the story, it makes players feel more like ‘brothers/sisters in arms under captain such-and-so’, instead of each being refered to as The Hero. Now GW2 already does this way more elegantly than most MMO RPG’s, but there’s always room for improvement.^^

Also somewhere in this topic I saw someone suggest various ways to address the player. I really like that idea! It could work a bit like titles, where the chosen ‘story nickname’ would be filled in (in the text parts, not necessarily the spoken part) in the place of where ‘the commander’ (or something) would normally be. That would be a nice little customization option that does a lot to enhance immersion. Nicknames could be unlocked depending on story or background choices, or achievements. So for example if you did the Vigil storyline, you would unlock Crusader, Warmaster, etc. Also, often players identify their characters with various organizations from the setting (and dress them up to look like them!). It would be nice if the game could recognize such things. For example, human players could be recognized as being with the Seraph, Ministry Guard and so on. Or perhaps Norn players would find more references to their chosen totem spirit. Yes, I really like such (perhaps unimportant on the larger scale) little things! Anyway, I derailed this way too much, whoops. :P

the “Chosen One Hero” approach makes GW2 seem more like a single-player game, than a MMO, imo. that’s the one issue that I have so far with the Personal Story (which I have not yet finished). Nobody else playing the game matters, cause I’m the only hero.

the overall story of GW2, and the Living Story should be more about the whole of Tyria banding together to fight evil, not just one guy and his 2 or 3 NPC friends fighting 1 guy and his evil army.

I think the answer to many of these dilemma’s is to make more use of text dialogues and use less spoken text. I know spoken text is cool, but it’s really holding the story back. In the long it’ll also be cheaper, since anyone can write a string of text but voice actors have to be hired, paid and take several tries to get it right.

I don’t feel the voice acting is holding the story back at all. If anything, it brings it to life. Sure it would be cheaper to use just text boxes, but I don’t want it cheaper. They made a great leap with the transition from GW1 to GW2 by making everything voice acted. I don’t think I’d want to go back to a none-voice acted world.

I like voice acting for all the characters, but the pragmatist in me just wants to just convert to the “silent” hero approach. It was nice for my character to talk during the PS, but now it’s just going to hemorrhage money trying to get the numerous VAs together for the different races/genders/personalities.

Keep all the npcs voiced, maybe even with voiced replies to questions your character asked and whatnot, but I’d much prefer the silent hero with text box options.

When I look at the story, which I will agree has been improving, I think that the main component that needs improvement is not the level of grandiosity (we can all feel that this current story will build into something big), nor the level of heroic focus (being the sole object of focus for a story is not always what I need as a player), nor a need for spoken PC dialogue (expensive and limiting), but rather a discrepancy in the perceived value of its characters.

What I mean by this, is that many people seem to be having difficulty valuing and feeling valued by the new team if biconics (is that the right term?). In these story releases, we are given some things to do but I am having a hard time understanding and accepting why it has to be me, specifically. What is it about my PC that makes me so invaluable to the team? Am I just here for their convenience? Is there something about me that they need in order to go forwards? If there is a task, what makes me the most qualified out of the people in this group, or even world, to do it? I certainly did not feel needed in this release, I felt shoehorned in, the plus 1 to someone else’s party. It’s okay to be part of a group, but the best parties are those that wouldn’t be a party at all if you weren’t there.

Along a similar vein, what am I supposed to value (as in, how does the hero group need these people?) about the biconics and is that accurately being portrayed to the audience? Am I as a viewer supposed to take value out of the relationship between Kas and Jory? I see much more value in the traits that were portrayed for them earlier in season 1, such as their determination and dependability, the relationship (while a fine addition) seems more incidental and almost gets in the way of their value. Am I supposed to be valuing Braham’s meathead humour? I found previous attempts to portray him as a tender-hearted big brother figure to add much more value in terms of why I would want to associate with him. Taimi is a Scarlet fangirl with intellect, which is good to show. The value of her is the ability she has to push past her disability and still contribute to the team with enthusiasm that the other members lack (I think the best steps have been made with her). Similar inputs for Rox, etc.

While I recognize the biconics are getting character development in the sense that we are gradually finding out more about them knowledge wise, I feel we are losing some of the value-added along the way. I am losing sight of what makes them an essential part of the team.

What we value in people in real life is not always the things we KNOW about them. Just look at your own group of friends. I know in my closest group there is someone I KNOW is going to into game design, but what I VALUE about him is his honesty and loyalty. I KNOW a friend who can take photos that would make a rock cry, but I VALUE that he is a shameless optimist that sees the best in everything. I KNOW a lesbian friend, but I VALUE that she enjoys humour for the joy it brings others. Similarly, I have identity with these friends because they VALUE that I am a hard-worker who sets lofty goals and have fierce determination…not because of the facts they know about me or that I am convenient to spend time with.

I guess I just want to say this: we don’t always need a spotlight -it’s okay to just be A hero – but we do always need to feel valued and needed.
For each character, just take a second to go through and check.
Braham is in the group, but why is HE needed?
Kas is in the group, but why is SHE needed?
Jory is in the group, but why is SHE needed?
Taimi is in the group, but why is SHE needed?
Rox is in the group, but why is SHE needed?
The PC is in the group, but why is HE/SHE needed?

If at any point in the story you can look at the character and not have a good answer to that question, it will always come out as flat.
This is all insanely difficult to address, but it is what I feel is at the root of most of the complaints I have seen about the story. Otherwise, things have been looking up…keep up the good work!

[Sorry, I posted this almost verbatim in another topic elsewhere, but really felt that the input could be used here. Squadala, I’m off!]

Just want to say I’m happy how many sneaky little lore bits you’re adding — new books in Durmand Priory, new dialogue for certain characters like Beigarth and the Pale Tree.

Add me to the list of not caring whether or not I’m the ultimate savior — though it’s fun to be that sometimes, I’m OK with other characters getting the glory sometimes. Maybe because I’ve always considered my elementalist to be pretty feckless and unlikely to be much of anybody’s savior, lol.

Anyways. I do agree with the pillow talk getting a little old. I know you need to do that some to emphasize how their relationship has changed, but I liked them better in the funny “she can’t have you” phase. I realize Marjory’s noir inspiration keeps her from being funny herself, but you guys have proven you can have fun with it anyways.

Yesterday me and guildies were having a ton of fun inspecting the waypoints, and the books at the Priory.

ThiBash.5634:

I think the answer to many of these dilemma’s is to make more use of text dialogues and use less spoken text. I know spoken text is cool, but it’s really holding the story back. In the long it’ll also be cheaper, since anyone can write a string of text but voice actors have to be hired, paid and take several tries to get it right.

Skyrim does this decently without VA. I don’t think the PC is voice acted while most of the NPCs are, the PC still frequently interacts with NPCs, often calls the shots and chooses how to engage with the world around them (more than just the personality system which we don’t even have any more). I don’t buy “we can’t get VAs” as a reason for why the PC is sidelined in the story. Skyrim has a story that is all about the PC, the Dragonborn, and it does it without requiring VAs. If the PC isn’t given a voice, it’s not because of a VA, it’s because of a decision the devs made.

With the decision to scrap the personality system (notice it’s not in the new dialogue and was removed from the hero panel with the Feature Pack?) and Angel’s comments about no longer trying to write PC dialogue options to not intrude on our own personal identities, it seems like ArenaNet doesn’t place a high priority on that facet of the story any more.