Guild Wars 2

Uh, Malafide… Martin didn’t create trial by combat. That was a fixture of medieval law, and has been used in numerous fantasy settings since.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It’s clear that GW2’s writers have seen game of thrones, or read a song of ice and fire, because why else do you think Minster Zamon’s asked for trial by combat? That was literally ripped from game of thrones.

Could be, but trail by combat did exist and was done rather frequently. There is even a german handbook written in the middle ages with useful tips and guides how to win such a trial by combat and how to counter different weapons and strategies, by your opponent.

Edit: Didn’t see Aaron’s post. :P

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Uh, Malafide… Martin didn’t create trial by combat. That was a fixture of medieval law, and has been used in numerous fantasy settings since.

Of course. And I’m sure that is what the writers would say. But it was quite obvious that they just borrowed this after seeing season one of Game of Thrones. GoT might not have a copyright on the trial by combat, but its pretty clear where they got this idea.

Season One of GoT aired in mid-2011 – the first beta of GW2 was only a few months later – I’m pretty sure the bulk of the core writing (particularly with regards to the personal story) was done and drafted by that point so the voice acting could be done.

….and the first book of A Song of Ice and Fire was published in 1996.

Yes, but Malafide specifically said, in her last post, that they were inspired by Season One of the show Game of Thrones.

I’m not saying the GW2 writers hadn’t read ASOIAF, I’m just saying it’s unlikely the show was the source of inspiration for that.

I can follow OP in this, and also the fact that your PS gets largely ignored later in the game. As an asura, you find out that there are problems with the council, and you never get a chance to pick up on that story…
Oh, and with the comparisons to ASOIAF, it’s obvious that they didn’t base the story off that too much… or Trahearne would have died

^
Kotaki has it right. Unfortunately it’s inverted, 90% is like that last frame of Quaggan poses, and 10% is the good stuff.

If all of Kekai’s artwork got into the game, Guild Wars 2 would be an infinite times better. Even if it was still full of comedy.

Because lets face it, even if they give it the voice of Gilbert Gottfried, Kekai’s Nightmare Court and his Risen King of Orr or even his Giganticus Lupicus makes the game’s versions pale in comparison.
Even his Meteorologicus was far superior to the fluff of clouds seen in-game. If it was that version, I may actually want it. Bifrost too.

I mean, just imagine facing this off in the Dragonbrand, or fighting this thing in Orr.

I wonder why Kekai left ArenaNet, when he provided so much epicness to the game’s art.

For those wanting more Kekai awesomeness, this is his blog

Exosferatu.2961:

I agree with the OP. Guild Wars 2 is too lighthearted.

Arena Net needs to tweak the story a bit serious and melodramatic like Kotaki’s artwork for Guild Wars 2.

The worst part is that those are most of the loading screens, and then when you’re running around the tone is quite the contrary

Ha I never saw this one

I bet he made it for Martin. Should have made one in a good old ’Lautern jersey. Would have been even easier on the eyes. :P

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Because lets face it, even if they give it the voice of Gilbert Gottfried,

-cough-

Anyway, I don’t know if a better art style had made the game better. The problems mostly just seem to lie with the writing, and the overall lack of ambiance. I’m not feeling anything close to that feeling of desolation, like in GW1’s old Ascalon.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Because lets face it, even if they give it the voice of Gilbert Gottfried,

-cough-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR1f6XQE4Aw

Anyway, I don’t know if a better art style had made the game better. The problems mostly just seem to lie with the writing, and the overall lack of ambiance. I’m not feeling anything close to that feeling of desolation, like in GW1’s old Ascalon.

OMG, THAT FEEL.
I felt so depressed when I wandered post searing Ascalon.
I agree that this game lacks epicness.
The problem is to define what epicness is and how do you make something more epic.
Taking the world seriously is a good start though. Not that much comedy.
But you cannot get insta-serious without risking being awkward.

I wonder how serious will the next patch be. I know the devs are aware of this topic, since it is at the top of the forum. But I don’t know how much weight they give to the opinions displayed here. We’re like 10 – 20 people posting in this thread. I guess the forum only gives them food for though and that’s it.

Maybe we should try to focus on the parts that they’ve done well, so they find the people responsible for those parts of the game. I like the ogre wars in fields of ruin. And in general I think they’ve done a good work with all ogres in general in Ascalon.

The centaur in the Harati lands are good too.

UnrealUK.9506:

Yes, but Malafide specifically said, in her last post, that they were inspired by Season One of the show Game of Thrones.

I’m not saying the GW2 writers hadn’t read ASOIAF, I’m just saying it’s unlikely the show was the source of inspiration for that.

It’s a shame they can’t actually write intriguing political stuff.

There’s so much potential what with the different Asura colleges, the different Charr legions, a chance to make Krytan politics interesting…but nah none of this. I literally see NO ASoIaF in the plot/lore which sucks cos GW2 could do with a bit of that.

At this point I’m not even sure if the developers are taking their lore and game world seriously anymore. GW1 had a far more serious tone to it with a bit of humor on the side yet GW2 sort of feels like the opposite.

+1

I’ve been discussing this with my guild a little bit recently. I was a huge fan of the story of GW1 from start to finish. The complete lack of any particularly dark story elements (or at least the implementation of them) in this game is really upsetting to me. Tyria is a wreck and it’s beset on all sides by war and disaster, and yet it feels like I’m playing in a child’s pop-up book. SAB is fun, but it pretty much personifies this complaint.

Scarlet gives me a little hope, despite how little information we’ve been given on her so far. She clearly has no problem with out-right slaughtering civilians and getting away with it though, and that’s a good start. I hope she’ll be around long enough to do something that really matters and will negatively impact the world of Tyria (not the story or the game itself, but Tyria). Like, I don’t know, succeed in totaling one of the major cities? Maybe she murders Rox. Maybe she murders Countess Anise. I’d rather see her do something truly shocking though, like nuke Ebonhawke.

She claims to have seen/understand the meaning of life, the universe. Maybe she retrieves the Anti-Life Equation and places the world of Tyria under her control. /cough

All I know is that this game needs real conflict/tragedy/disaster that can’t be fixed with a resurrection spell (I’m aware that resurrection isn’t possible anymore as far as we know) or by spamming #2. It needs to be cold and it needs to have a lasting effect.

Hurt us, ANet. We’re ready. :l

Dark story and comedy need to both exist. All dark is too depressing. And all comedy is too light.

That said….

Innocents need to die in mass. Bad guys need to win multiple times. Characters and players need to feel fear, anger, pain, sadness and frustration. Only then can GW2 have a good story.

There is a reason why so many players misses the likes of Sieran. We need more of those. Give a NPC some character development and then kill him/her off.

Here is what a necromancer like my main would say to Scarlet before stabbing her in the heart: “You know why you lost? Because a prodigy like you would never suffer as much pain as I did.”

Sieran and Tybalt were some of the best developed characters in this game and they’ve killed them both.
Yet it did make a good story and it gave more motivation to our characters. We need more of that with in the Living World business. I feel that there isn’t much motivation for us to get involved any more. Going through a Hero’s Journey, which would require a bit of a darker and more serious tone, would be a great help in appreciating the story / being a apart of it.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

[Scarlet] I’d rather see her do something truly shocking though, like nuke Ebonhawke.

Eerily, I considered this too, but not coming from Scarlet Briar.

What if a Tribune decided to call it quits with the armistice? He wants to have Charr succeed in finally eradicating the “human scum” from Ebonhawke. So, he secretly begins talks with the Charr Separatists, and hatches a scheme to take the fortress. Since security details are lower, because of the Truce, and gates are basically open, it would be relatively easy. First thing they need to do, of course, is sneak a team of 3-4 Ash Legion operatives and neutralize/gain control of the Asura gate. There wouldn’t be reinforcements.

Anyway, the point of this is: losing Ebonhawke to Charr Renegades would accomplish a few things:

• Put even more pressure in the strenuous situation Humans currently live
• Cause a schism in Charr relationship. The Tribune leading this could be Bhuer Goreblade, and that could lead to conflict with Rytlock
• Representatives from all races should be slaughtered during the attack. Real losses. Familiar faces.
• With Ebonhawke in the hands of some Charr, the Desert Gate could be open, leading to Kralkatorrik
• Logan could team up, in friendly terms with Rytlock, to take the stronghold back. It was, after all, founded by his ancestor.

I dunno, I just woke up and I haven’t had my coffee yet.

So you arn’t counting the 100-1000 people who died when scarlet bombed the exits. Through dugion we only saved 3 people. Not really an accomplishment in any respect. Because of the dark undertone it is necessary to vibrant entertainment to counteract it. Otherwise everyone would lock themselves in their rooms and slowly starve to death. The community has to think we are winning; hence dragon bash and other festivals. I expect bubbles to resink ore and claim the magical hot spots for himself.

Fafnir.5124:

So you arn’t counting the 100-1000 people who died when scarlet bombed the exits.

I’m sorry, who? Bunch of unnamed pixels I don’t care about?

Oh.

Eluveitie.1290:

The problem with killing off someone, like Faren, is that it would interfere with the personal story and would make no sense whatsoever to the new players. Also, if that character has a role in it that creates conflicts with the cohesion, it’d be a mess. Faren was well played during this arc and devs have said the will start to blurr the line between PS and LS. Hopefully we will see more.

PS was really a BIG mistake for this game, in all senses, in my opinion.

Actually it would be alright. The whole PS is in the past already. Zhaitan is already defeated (maybe still alive, but defeated).

Fafnir.5124:

So you arn’t counting the 100-1000 people who died when scarlet bombed the exits. Through dugion we only saved 3 people. Not really an accomplishment in any respect. Because of the dark undertone it is necessary to vibrant entertainment to counteract it. Otherwise everyone would lock themselves in their rooms and slowly starve to death. The community has to think we are winning; hence dragon bash and other festivals. I expect bubbles to resink ore and claim the magical hot spots for himself.

The main characters doesn’t need to be winning, until the very end. Why do you think phases like “Face the giant” and “Fight the power” exist?

I was gonna say, in GW1 the good guys don’t have a real victory until the 4th to last mission. Every other small victory lead to a disaster in one way or another up until that point. And from then on they had to fight hard losing people along the way until they had succeeded, and even then it twists once more before the fully and truly win.

I think the part of Orr (I’m speaking Orr specifically because it’s story should be the darkest) that failed in the Personal Story is the fact that too many characters that died were from personal stories you never saw. It would have had more of an impact if, as a sylvari, I ran into a possibly even small or insignificant named sylvari from earlier on in my personal story who appears once more in orr and then she dies, than it does when I run into a human or two from someone else’s story. I think they are on the right trail with the “pyramid” idea (broad base of stories convening at one titanic moment) but somewhere along the line the actions of our characters in our past are almost completely lost. I mean minus the racial sympathy characters showing up, there wasn’t much in the way of “reunions”.

-somewhere along the Watchtower Coast, Kryta 1327 AE-

…Symun looked down into the blue-green waters, searching for his trap. He found it half buried in the sandy bottom, empty like the others. The river delta along the southern shore of Giant’s Basin was usually good for crabs. Today, the waters were eerily quiet.

He frowned to himself, and crouched there ankle-deep in the surf, letting the waves wash over his calloused hands. ‘I should have taken that job in Lions Arch’ he thought to himself, drooping his head a little at the prospect of working in that city. He hated city life, but out here in the middle of nowhere was proving to have its own hardships.

Scab, his old drakehound, started to bark erratically behind him, then suddenly began whimpering and whining. “What in Grenth is going on Scab!” Symun said as he whirled the dogs direction. Scab was laying low in the beach, tail tucked down, eyes darting back and forth between him and something to his right. Symun caught a tall shadow in the sand just then, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose instinctively. He hesitated, then turned his head slowly.

Standing…no, hovering there in front of him, 10 feet tall at least, was a humanoid creature. Golden yellow, with stringy black feathers radiating behind it, and glassy, cold, black eyes leering down at him. Symun tried to scream, but no sound escaped his lips. He lurched back, stumbling into the surf, and turned away, trying to get to his feet.

Suddenly his mind exploded in a cacophony of white noise. He instinctively put his hands over his ears to stop the piercing scream ripping into his brain. But there was no sound, nothing except the burning agony inside his mind. He fell to the ground in pain, face first in the water and sucking up surf. His lungs began to choke on sand and saltwater, but he couldn’t tell. The shrieking pain stabbing his mind numbed everything around him. His body convulsed, gasping for oxygen, but his head still lay flopping in the shallow water, twisting uncontrollably.

Finally his body stopped moving, his expression frozen in a grotesque mask of agony, still face down in the water. The creature floated over to the body, laid its bony foot over the lifeless head, and pushed it into the sand, burying it deeper with a sharp twist as a vertebrae snapped. It then rose up, turned to the south, and stared off at the far-away ramparts and banners of a distant city on a hill. The creature made an eerie scratching sound and its eyes darkened further, a menacing jet black.

“Humansss…” it hissed.

Hypothetical scenario…

In the last 255 years, the Mursaat that survived the War in Kryta had retreated to the Isle of Janthir. Slowly rebuilding their strength and numbers, they never forgot their defeat at the hands of the humans, and vowed a bitter revenge…

After the rise of the Elder Dragons, while the humans seemed weak, they deemed the time ripe for action. Sweeping down across the Watchtower Coast, the vengeful Mursaat and their Jade constructs poured into Kryta, terrifying and murdering humans as they went. Queensland was utterly overrun, the Krytans either fleeing into Divinity’s Reach, retreating to Fort Salma in the southwest, or seeking refuge in Ascalon Settlement in the east.

Divinity’s Reach itself was not taken, its massive walls buttressing it against the Mursaat onslaught. But cut off from supplies and soldiers, it was forced to draw forces from Ebonhawke. Factions within the Charr army, seeing an opportunity, launch a sneak attack on Ebonhawke and manage to breach a section of the wall. Charr forces pour into the city, overwhelming the outnumbered defenders. Queen Jenna orders the Asura gate closed, and Ebonhawke is lost.

The Norn pull out citizens from Ascalon in protest, and close the mountain passes around their lands, prefering isolation. But they don’t come to the human’s aid either. The Asura take in refugees, and offer assistance with food and supplies, but refuse to actively help the humans. Lions Arch takes in refugees as well, but can only offer a few platoons of Lion Guard soldiers in Gendarren. Only the Sylvari provide any real help, sending a large force north that proves vital in saving Fort Salma.

Remarkably, help comes from an unlikely ally. The Tengu, long quiet and hiding behind their walls in the Dominion of Winds, suddenly burst from the great north gate. They descend quickly upon the Mursaat in Kessex Hills, routing a large part of their forces there and sending them back into Queensland. The Tengu, it seems, know how to hurt the Unseen Ones.

It’s unclear why the Tengu chose to come out of hiding now(or what their motives are), or if the other races will choose to help. Only one thing is clear, humanity’s future hangs in the balance…

Alright let’s do a Hypothetical scenario to give the developers some examples:

In the next Aetherblade attack, they almost successfully captures Queen Jennah. Suddenly BAM, all 20+ Aetherblade members were blown away. And standing in front of the queen were Anise and 2 other witches.

“Your life and blood is important to be lost right now, Queen Jennah. Daughter of Doric.”
Queen Jennah: “What…who are you?”
“We are friends of humanity. You might call us the Sisterhood of Thirteen.”

The Aetherblade resumed their attack. The witches picked up one of the dead Aetherblades nearby, and turned him into an undead minion.
“What? I am alive?”
“Yes. And now you are our servant.”

The undead aetherblades charges into his former allies, and then explodes, killing all nearby. The remaining Aetherblades ran off in fear.

The crowd were shocked:
“They…they rose an undead. Not a minion, an undead!”
“That’s illegal!”
“They must be the witches in legend. Thieves of the Night. Eater of Children!”

The witches replied:
“The few must be sacrificed for the need of many.”

Scarlett was kitten ed.
“You might be able to beat those useless Aetherblades. But you have no chance against my Twisted Nightmares.”

A Veteran Twisted Nightmare charges at the witches. One of the witches calmly stand in front and, growing a pair of purple energetic wings, swept the Veteran Twisted Nightmare aside.

“Purple wings???”
“Abaddon’s servant? But he is dead!”

The witches replied:
“Abaddon is dead, but his magic lives on forever.”

Scarlet then retreated:
“kitten these new fools! I will be back after more research. You won’t be so lucky next time.”

Anise: “Sisters, is this really ok?”
Witches: “We didn’t have a choice. And it is about time we come out into the open.”

When the witches turn to face Queen Jennah, Logan is already in front of her, sword drawn.

“Stay away from the queen, you monsters!”

The witches were silent for a moment, and then blasted out laughing.

“Monster? Haha we get those a lot.”
“My queen, the Sisterhood of Thirteen wants to offer our alliance to you.”

Logan: “Don’t listen to them! These witches are full of tricks. They eat children and practise the dark acts!”

The witches answered:
“To clarify, we do indeed steal children, but we don’t eat them.”
“The human lifespan is too short, no matter how talented you are, to become powerful. And power is what we need to save humanity.”
“What we did was transfer our power, spirit and knowledge into the next host. The children is perfectly alive, in us. And our power eventually grow from training and learning over hundreds of years.”
“Abaddon’s corruption is nullified each time we switch bodies. That’s how we got around it.”

Logan: “Nonsense and twisted logic!”

“My queen, here is our offer. We will assist you kingdom and people with our powers, under 2 conditions.”
“Firstly, the old Order of Mages must be disbanded. That means all magic of all kind will be legal from here on out. Humanity must no longer be limited by useless laws and honour. From here on, humanity will embrace the full power of magic.”
“I remember the fall of Ascalon like it was yesterday. And it was due to The Order preventing the use of forbidden magic, even after the devastating Searing. Remember our history, my queen.”
“The Order used to hunt down and burn our kind. We are being very tolerant to simply ask for them to disband.”

“Second, the each of the thirteen of us requires a new child every 20 years to renew ourselves. The children must be magic prodigies. If you accept our alliance, this will be on your responsibility.”
“The next renewal is in 3 years. So you don’t have to worry about it until later. 13 children every 20 years, to save lives of thousands. You do the math.”

Anise: “Think hard my queen. Look at the power of just a team of three of us. The other three teams each have different talents, but just as powerful. And the Thirteenth…”
“Don’t talk about the Thirteenth, my sister. The world is not ready for it.”

Logan: “My queen, don’t listen to their madness! Evil and dark powers are never free. They always want something in return. Not just those child prodigies.”

“We always keep our promises, my queen. What we ask of you right now is all that we will ask for.”
“If you do not ally with us, don’t worry we will still serve humanity. But if you do something foolish, you might not be part of that picture. Humanity will endure, with or without you my queen.”

Queen Jennah: “What do you classify as foolish?”
“Rely on these Charrs for your defense and protection, for example. Have you ever considered what would happen once all the Elder Dragon dies? The war between humans and Charrs will resume, and you will be killed.”
“Think my queen. How would humanity endure?”

What would Queen Jennah do?

I have absolutely no interest in grimdark intruding into my GW2. It needs to be more epic at times, but there are better ways to achieve that than shooing out the clowns.

Plus I despise George Martin. The less I see of his influence, the better.

@CHIPS. How about keeping it to GW lore?

I agree that a bit more seriousness wouldn’t hurt, although I personally don’t mind the lightheartedness.

Naranek.3467:

I have absolutely no interest in grimdark intruding into my GW2. It needs to be more epic at times, but there are better ways to achieve that than shooing out the clowns.

Plus I despise George Martin. The less I see of his influence, the better.

And I have no interest in the circus intruding into my GW. Shooing out the clowns would be a good start actually.

I wouldn’t say GW1 was grimdark, but it was certainly more edgy and epic. If anything, GW2 intruded into the “Guild Wars” style.

really great speculation going on. plus 1 internets all around. heres the infamous livia discovering the scepter of orr in the end cut scene of EOTN. go read sea of sorrows! ^^

Have to agree with the OP here. The original Guild Wars was more in the right direction. Humanity in distress, you could feel it. Deprivations, struggle, even heroes died or you had to fight them against your will – to name just a few factors.

In GW2 however, everything seems to be … off. Now it’s happy hippo wonderland. Everyone is cuddling each other, except for a few splinter groups that are seemingly easy to overcome. “Hey, let’s bust some dragons and just forget about centuries of war, cruelties, crimes, deaths, menace, mistrust and unimportant stuff like that. Let’s just put aside our cultural differences, because they’re moot anyways!”. Although it makes sense to stick together in order to defeat a greater threat, I can’t help but to find this alliance stuff to be nothing more than a tribute solely to the gameplay.

Anet wanted a game where everyone can play together and thus the overall setting had to be one where story parts and NPCs are easily knit together. Sadly, now the story lacks bite, it lacks tension … So they have to rely on twisted and turned in stuff like communist Mowls, misguided frog people and … Scarlet … to create some antagonists. But that’s flat … it’s just so out of nowhere. GW’s history has so much more to offer. In fact the lore originally was so rich that Anet might have lost sight of everything? I don’t know, I just don’t have any other explanation as to why they struggle to connect with it again.

Granted, maybe we just have to wait. Maybe Anet has something up its sleeves, maybe in the end they will tie together more stuff, but at the moment, it’s all just a freakish, colorful, dollhouse universe with no underlying menace. Hell, even the dragons which should be goose bumpingly terrifying … aren’t. At least for me. For some reason, I just can’t take them seriously. I can’t really put my finger on it, but I guess … it’s some kind of … presentation problem? What I get to see, it’s not threatening enough, there is no feeling of: “Oh my god, this thing is … … … I’m not nearly playing in its league! Holy crap, … run… RUN!” – it lacks epic proportions.

Killing Zhaitan for example left me speechless, not because it was cool, no, because this whole thing was shallow, without meaning. Now, I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe something that felt like I really did something there? Some event… something that happens in the world as soon as Zhaitan falls, and by that I don’t mean celebrations all over the world. Yet again there was a chance to create something sinister. Yeah, great, you killed the dragon, BUT! … yeah but what? Maybe the dragon was connected to something in Tyria and with its dead this thing died too? You see? This would create a dilemma, and dilemmas are interesting stuff. Now the world has to think about other means to get rid of the dragons, without damaging Tyria any further. You can’t just kill them, you have to work around something. Obstacles create tension – basic rule of writing.

And for tension Anet doesn’t have to throw in crazy new stuff. The lore is vast enough to build tension out of its own accord. There are so many loose ends begging to be tied together, and I hope Anet remembers them some day. Please, Anet come back to the ground! Give us a solid world, give us some profound tragedy, something more severe – but not this constant jumping castle touch.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

If all of Kekai’s artwork got into the game, Guild Wars 2 would be an infinite times better. Even if it was still full of comedy.

Because lets face it, even if they give it the voice of Gilbert Gottfried, Kekai’s Nightmare Court and his Risen King of Orr or even his Giganticus Lupicus makes the game’s versions pale in comparison.
Even his Meteorologicus was far superior to the fluff of clouds seen in-game. If it was that version, I may actually want it. Bifrost too.

I mean, just imagine facing this off in the Dragonbrand, or fighting this thing in Orr.

I wonder why Kekai left ArenaNet, when he provided so much epicness to the game’s art.

For those wanting more Kekai awesomeness, this is his blog

I miss this artwork. He provided some amazing pieces in GW1 and early GW2

For a dark and engaging story, I recommend watching “Walking Dead”, “Game of Thrones” and “Attack on Titan”. Walking Dead and Game of Thrones needs no introduction. Attack on Titan is an anime where the main character suffers defeat after defeat. There is no victory, only death. Nearly everyone around the main character, some were pretty close to him, dies.

Of course, victory will come eventually. But its the suffering and pain that drives the story.

Now back to GW2, and here is the problem. The Elder Dragons are, by far, stronger than the Titans in that anime. But the elder dragon killed VERY FEW PPL when compared to the Titans. If you watch the anime, you will see that many civilians and soldiers died. Whole cities were lay ruined. And there were absolutely nothing the main character can do about it, at that time. Minimize casualty was the only thing they can do.

And you see people with all personality. Some people will go out of their way to help others, only to die. Others are extremely selfish and caused death of others.

And that’s the kind of things that drives a dark story.

They also should start introduction Tragic Villians. The world is a cruel place, for both heroes and villains.

http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Tragic_Villain

I see a big divide in the GW2 writing. The elder dragons and their stories with the risen, icebrood, etc are all dark. The dragons are supposed to provide threat. Most of the stories involving the minor races like the quaggans, hylek, dredge, skritt, grawl, etc are lighthearted and there is no ultimate threat. The kodan are heavily tied into the Jormag stories though so there isn’t much fun there. The stories about the major races and their enemy counterparts are mixed. The nightmare court take their hedonism pretty seriously but Anet are suckers for asuran technology jokes.

The underlying issue behind this is that they try to insert a “trademark GW2 style”, which they established on the quirkier and whimsical side for marketability reasons, at every corner of the physical world and narrative.
There can’t be a part that is not drenched in this signature style. There can’t be a part that is more subdued, less flashy. It seems almost obsessive.
ANet thinks this improves the overall experience, by linking everything together and creating a seamless flow, when all it accomplishes is for everything to become a bland, grey, unappetizing mush.
But you do not create a successful, memorable fictional world like that. There shouldn’t be one all-purpose trademark style.

There is no grand vision behind the mood the narrative and world design should take as it progresses. There are no significant build-ups and climaxes, the mood throughout the story and world is constant, flatlining.
Every writer/artist seemingly tries to add their own disjointed, disconnected quips and quirks, which just emphasizes the lack of vision.
Good zone design (not saying GW2 particularly shines here either) alone doesn’t work. You can’t just throw in some more menacing looking mooks and a dreary landscape if the tone doesn’t reflect that, if it doesn’t take it and work with it.

Nightfall was a perfect example (within the franchise) of how you do it right. The story had plenty of build-ups and climaxes. To identify the three central climaxes:
*The Istani assault on Gandara
*The fight against The Hunger/human Varesh
*The battle against Abbaddon
The Vabbi story arc in the middle, to contrast, was a giant build-up with a mellower tone, reflected in both story and world design, which was a great shakeup from the warlike, political one of the previous two “chapters”.
As you progressed through first the Desolation, then the Realm of Torment, the mood became darker and bleaker.
This contrast enabled both parts to shine. If it was constantly one tone it would have been much less interesting storytelling.

My suggestion to fix that would be to hire (or promote) one senior writer to direct the next big story arc. A director.
Preferably one who has a formal degree in writing (hate to suggest that because talent is unrelated to that, but still, I think it’s a safer bet for ANet than pulp fantasy credentials)
And for the love of good, DON’T make mastery of the Guild Wars lore the foremost qualification, like seems to be your present policy. Lore is nice to have, but it arises organically in the writing of a compelling story, while the reverse is rarely true.