Guild Wars 2

Being completely honest: having a 5 months lasting living story where it only gets worth playing at the 4th update is not a good thing. I find myself neglecting all these refugees and my compassion towards them is a round 0.
The cut-scenes were a great add and I hope we can see more of them in future expansions.

Also, this games lore has drifted maybe a bit too far from gw1. I understand they try to be original with this game but do notice the number 2 at the end of the title.

Bring us new continents, interesting/immersing lore and some bad kitten bosses that have a real story behind them. We know almost nothing about most of the bosses in this game. (except Zhaitan and I’m not even gonna go there). Some story dungeons are done well but people tend to skip them as you can enter exploreable mode without completing story mode. I noticed they tried to fix this by implementing story dungeons into dailies but let’s be honest, everybody visits a laurel vendor or kills fish rather than bother with finding a party and entering a story dungeon where you don’t even get tokens from.

This games lore suffers from major lack of built up boss encounters. I’m fearing that this living storys last boss is just a machine you have to destroy while portals spawn random mobs all the time.

This belongs more in the living story or suggestion forum than the lore forum, but I kind of agree and disagree with differing points.

The first two months would have been better off merged together into one, and unless the fourth update is much larger than the third, the third and fourth could have been merged together into one as well.

However, I disagree with the second part. I don’t see how the lore has drifted too far from GW1 – maybe you feel that way because GW1 was human-centric while this isn’t? Because that’s all that is really differing from GW1 in terms of lore.

Furthermore, “new continents” isn’t something that should be covered in the Living Story, but expansions.

And just want to note: “We know almost nothing about most of the bosses in this game.” Same can be said for GW1, actually. Only a fraction of those bosses actually mattered, lore-wise. And those are the ones we remember. We remember Galrath, Verata, Shiro, Dhuum, and Mallyx; in GW2, we remember Gaheron, King Adelbern, Faolain, Kudu, and Zhaitan. But who here knows of checks wiki Garbok Handsmasher or Glug Klugg from GW1? I bet without looking it up, you’d think Glug Klugg was a troll. Same kind of thing for the bosses in GW2 that don’t have story behind them.

The only problem bosses have in GW2 is that they’re not exposed enough before conflict – unlike Dagnar Stonepate, or Justiciar Halbion. We only hear of GW2 bosses through their minions, where until we meet them they’re just a face behind a shadowy veil 1970’s world villain style. But they still have backstory and lore, moreso than the GW1 bosses except the really major ones.

Ah, I miss Utini Wupwup. Those grawl bosses in Witman’s Folley were awesome!

It does seem like they did do a bit too much lore “shuffling” to make the GW2 story fit, to the point where the lore isn’t really solid. The bosses really suffer from the same thing all bosses in MMOs do, it’s hard to introduce them in this kind of world except through story instances.

If there’s story in the story modes but players skip them, that’s not ArenaNet’s fault, that’s player choice. Those of us who are interested will almost certainly want to play through story mode with all the cutscenes.

I have problems with how the Elder Dragons are presented in-game, as opposed to in lore (slash in my interpretation of the lore pre-release which is difficult for me to separate from the facts now, haha). However, they are developed plenty considering the whole point of them is that they were here all along, and evidence of their past rising is around, but we never knew. Other bosses in the game get plenty of development too, but when you’re operating through things like dynamic event chains the player has to be responsible for piecing some of it together.

Personally, I enjoy going out and discovering and piecing together the details, rather than being handed a wall-of-text explanation. Still, each to their own in that regard.

Yeah, it’s just sad sometimes. I miss having specific names engraved in my mind because of how much I hated fighting them. The Shadow Behemoth and such are awesome fights, but everywhere else the bosses are just Veteran or Champion or Legendary. I miss the Utini Wupwup’s and the Galrath’s and the Verata’s, but at the same time I much prefer this approach than the respawn approach. In the end I see it as a lose/lose situation. The one they chose lost the least.

Well there are still some named foes for events. They’re not all Veteran/Champion/Legendary <insert generic name here> foes.

Hicci.8761:

Also, this games lore has drifted maybe a bit too far from gw1. I understand they try to be original with this game but do notice the number 2 at the end of the title.

I think this right here is the problem. I fired up GW1 today to just mess around and loved remembering all the various political factions and culturally diverse continents. GW2 lore seems a bit shallow in comparison. The more I play GW2, the more I think “Dragons!” was just a good marketing ploy, rather than a serious and meaningful lore choice.

Keep in mind that Guild Wars is a total of 3 games, 1 expansion, and effectively 7 content update plots. Guild Wars 2 is currently 1 game, 0 expansions, and effectively 4 content update plots.

So of course when comparing modern GW2 lore to modern GW1 lore, GW2’s going to come in lacking. Because it hasn’t had the time to flourish as much. GW1 acts to GW2 much like GW1’s background lore does to the game – minimally imputted and used as just that – background.

Now, compare Prophecies with Halloween, Sorrow’s Furnace, and Wintersday to Guild Wars 2. Which is better? IMO, Guild Wars 2.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Now, compare Prophecies with Halloween, Sorrow’s Furnace, and Wintersday to Guild Wars 2. Which is better? IMO, Guild Wars 2.

I realize this is subjective, but I would still prefer that to GW2 (lore wise).