Guild Wars 2

Remember the very first announcement trailer for Guild Wars, 4-5 years ago?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjCehYrEbO0

I always wondered why the living story was not told through such as these moving-art-cinematics instead of the floating talking heads system with 2 characters just spewing out words awkwardly!

Did any of you play Max Payne 1 and 2? In many circles these games are considered legendary because they are so dense and compact. They focused on being great action games and nothing else. No vehicle sections. No sub-RPG elements. No platforming or puzzles to break monotone gameplay. No, they tried to excel at action and not much else.

But what Max Payne also did was that it told a really well written story, but without the need for cinematics or traditional cut scenes. Instead it embraced pictures, narrated by the main character along with voice effects. An example; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=339Kg3yzckY

- I could really imagine Guild Wars 2 being told like this. But in a more fairytail/fantasy style. A bit like the narration from the intro to lord of the rings( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOulsEGvSCo ) perhaps with flash based moving art images. Sort of like what is already in the order intro cinematics for vigil, priory, whispers.
Or a bit like here. In this intro sequence to the backstory of the Witcher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5K0L73ERMw
Imagine that with ArenaNets great artists!

The general problem is that the living story istn’t living story. It does not change the world around you beside decorating LA differently every now and then.

In fact there is no story, and that’s the problem.

And when is nothing basically changes ever, no writer in the world can do something decent. If there is no progression or plot there is no story to tell.

That’s why we end up with temporary content and festivals. They come and go and they are all the same. Nothing at all changes.

Now if there is some kind of plot and the world actually changes then a decent story can be told.

Story is king, ever was, ever will be.

It could be so simple, that NPCs react to you in other ways if you done something. Or events play out only if you done things in the past. It can even be different for people who just came by. It is relatively easy to create such a thing.

You can even put people in certain maps only if they did something before. So new players can experience the whole story as well. No need to have level 15-25 maps and level 80 maps. All it needs is the world around you change the more you play.

I understand why there is temporary content, so people feel the urge to play or they miss out something. But for that the temp. content needs to be good and not some lame grind. It’s a sprial that can only fail in the long run.

One thing is needed: story writing. You can only make up things as you go to a certain point.

It doesn’t matter if it is Scarlet or whatever. It just needs to make sense and change the world around you constantly.

And you could keep all the content there. But if your character has completed one part of the living world around it, the character cannot return. You can reply it with a new character of course. Similar to the personal story.

So what needs to be done: hire a decent writer. Not someone from the game industry, as most of them have no clue about how to tell a story..

Writers lay out the overall story arc and some summaries of the various chapters. Then you can fill it out as you like. But you have your outline you follow, the story, the arc the world will go through.

But right now there is no plot, no world development. Nothing. Just more grindy content ever 14 days. And the 14 days schedule is too ambitous as the Halloween update showed and probably todays update will as well.

If Anet continues down this path they will be in for a shock when next year some new MMOs come out. Even if they are subpar, people will leave because there is something new to play content wise.

Sad Swordfish.9743:

But what Max Payne also did was that it told a really well written story

This. Anet doesn’t seem to be able to write good stories and good characters.