Guild Wars 2

Despite all of the shortcomings about a MMO there were many memorable moments throughout the LS, i truly enjoyed it as a whole. I’d say you guys succesfully mixed a TV series feel with an RPG all the while getting better and better at delivering fun gaming content. I’ll go through a couple of feedback factors here.

Gameplay wise i’ve had a lot of fun in many of the releases, specially the latest ones. The way the objectives split the maps in just the sweet number to achieve equilibrium between making everyone feel like they contribute and even better for people who do not have top of the line computer specs. This is the highlight for me, and since the main focus is, obviously, the gaming part, this is a huge success.

Story wise, well. There are a lot of clichés and there is only so much you can do. The tyria wide consequences part of the LS still is kind of lacking. Still, it was better than what any multiplayer game did before. I’d say Anet followed the ragnarok game formula here. The highlight of the story for me is Scarlet, not talking about making a great character but in it’s own way she sparked the interest, for good or bad, of a great deal of the community. That is what makes a GREAT villain, i’m impressed. And talk about a last boss fight, i’m breathless.

Content wise, it went spiraling after Anet stopped introducing new game mechanics after Liadri i think, even though it was an announced change. Anet wanted to reward players in different forms in the beggining of the LS. However some types of players were left in the cold after it. There is a continued effort to link time spent doing boring things with having in-game money to supplement that and get rewards, if not to give players a choice of how to acquire things at least go back to having something for one or the other. Hopefully the content patch that is coming will make things better, it’s about time to implement some new elites (yes, gw1 spoiled me) if not new professions entirely.

All in all, thanks for the good game you’ve put out and how innovative it is.

P.S. Don’t forget about your fans here in Brazil!

An RPG is about personal choice, in this LS we had none, other than to participate or not. There were no dialogue choices with consequences or any roleplay choices at all. Our character doesn’t even talk with the other characters in the story (as in voiced dialogue). There is story but it is linear and occurs regardless of us as a player. That is by definition removing rpg from mmo, the only role we are playing in the living story is the mechanical role of our class build.

Gw2 is to the world of MMO’s what a magazine is to the world of reading.

For instance, I went to the bookstore the other day, picked up a magazine and flipped through the pages. 50% of that magazine is advertisements trying to get the “reader” to buy stuff. The rest? More advertisements to get you to buy stuff, only they are in the form of articles; giving the reader the illusion they are actually reading things of substance.

Overall, there is really nothing to that magazine but shallow, 1 dimensional illusions of literature crafted for the process of revenue creation.

We need more constructive posts like this. Good read.

The highlight of the story for me is Scarlet, not talking about making a great character but in it’s own way she sparked the interest, for good or bad, of a great deal of the community. That is what makes a GREAT villain, i’m impressed.

Respectfully disagree there. When you talk about a character being so poorly written it destroys the story immersion for you, it doesn’t matter that she affects you in a bad way…because it’s not making you enjoy the game. If the highlight is something that drives players away from the game (which it did for me) then you’ve chosen a very poor highlight.

Aajolea.8132:

An RPG is about personal choice, in this LS we had none, other than to participate or not. There were no dialogue choices with consequences or any roleplay choices at all. Our character doesn’t even talk with the other characters in the story (as in voiced dialogue). There is story but it is linear and occurs regardless of us as a player. That is by definition removing rpg from mmo, the only role we are playing in the living story is the mechanical role of our class build.

I understand where yo’re coming from and won’t deny it. As much as the notion of an RPG differs from person to person. The title was also more of a headline than a translation of what the post was about too haha

Vol.7601:

We need more constructive posts like this. Good read.

There have been plenty, you just choose to write them off or argue against them because the criticism bites a little deeper than you’d like.

Aajolea.8132:

An RPG is about personal choice, in this LS we had none, other than to participate or not. There were no dialogue choices with consequences or any roleplay choices at all. Our character doesn’t even talk with the other characters in the story (as in voiced dialogue). There is story but it is linear and occurs regardless of us as a player. That is by definition removing rpg from mmo, the only role we are playing in the living story is the mechanical role of our class build.

While I prefer RPGs that allow me some control over my character, I’m going to have to disagree with you on your opening statement. Choice isn’t a necessary element in RPGs (where video games are concerned). Some of my favorite RPGs have offer no choice at all (Final Fantasy IV, for example).

That said, the rest of the elements that go into an RPG (story, character development, character progression, exploration), FAR too many of those elements were painfully absent from the Living Story. None more so than my character’s voice. I don’t think my character said a single line, spoken or otherwise, during the entirety of the Living Story. I was basically relegated bystander. That, coupled with the lack of polish and lower standard of quality, makes me hope they abandon the Living Story model and never look back.

ValeN.3129:

Aajolea.8132:

An RPG is about personal choice, in this LS we had none, other than to participate or not. There were no dialogue choices with consequences or any roleplay choices at all. Our character doesn’t even talk with the other characters in the story (as in voiced dialogue). There is story but it is linear and occurs regardless of us as a player. That is by definition removing rpg from mmo, the only role we are playing in the living story is the mechanical role of our class build.

I understand where yo’re coming from and won’t deny it. As much as the notion of an RPG differs from person to person. The title was also more of a headline than a translation of what the post was about too haha

I have to disagree.

The RPG definition does not vary from person to person, the same way that water definition, Sun definition or what a Moa bird is does not vary from person to person.

RPG are Role Playing Games, there may be different flavours of it, but you should be able to play a role in a role playing game, by definition.

In GW2 we cannot play the role, or take any decisions on the role of the character. We can take, in a certain way, decide which combat role to practice during the already decided courses of action.

So, the only was GW2 is a succesful RPG is if we admit that an RPG that is so heavy railroaded that it doesn’t contain any roleplay may still be a roleplay game.

But that leads us to philosophy: A river without any drop of water, is still a river?

It may be a great game, but is not a roleplay game

i also prefer a choice in an RPG, take the tower of nightmares, when fighting the prophet, he was saying ‘i am the last of my kind’ as a biologist irl, that hurt me, i don’t wanna wipe out an entirely new species, even if there was no way to talk it down, i still would have tried….. 2 paths to get to the same destination

EDIT
while on the subject of choice, the only choice we had (to me) felt rigged, if evon gnashblade ‘won’ what would his fractal choice have to do with scarlet? seeing how kiel’s did, that kinda made me feel cheated of my potential choice/candidate

I couldn’t possibly disagree more.

My character didn’t speak a single line during the LS (spoken or otherwise). My character didn’t make a single choice during the LS. My character stood by, silently, while OTHER characters made all the decisions and spoke all the dialogue. All I did was the grunt-work…the kind of contribution they could have got out of any number of nameless Lionguard. That’s what my character was during this entire LS…a nameless background character. There was no growth, there was no development, and there was little contribution of the heroic variety.

Just as the LS didn’t develop my character, it didn’t progress my character. I’m no stronger after completing the LS than I was before. I didn’t progress at all. I have the same skills, the same stats, I’m the same level, and I even have the same gear (minus some backpieces and the occasional helmet) I had before I began this quest.

The Living Story offered no character development (story) and no character progression (game). To argue otherwise is foolish. So given those two facts, I fail to see how anyone could argue the Living Story did anything to foster the RPG of this MMORPG.

PS – I could have also gone into the complete lack of new zones to explore, but that’s not necessarily required for the LS to enhance the RPG elements of this game. I hate that it didn’t add new zones, but I’ll save that bullet for another gunfight.

I disagree. Roleplaying is something you can choose to do yourself. What matters in what degree the game facilitates the roleplaying. I think the last couple of LS updates have done their best to improve on that. For example, when the player, Kasmeer and Jory investigate the evidence. Or when we got to vote on LA’s new leader in cutthroat politics (a lot of players got into the spirit of that). And the battle for Lion’s Arch has stirred all sorts of roleplayers, especially on my own server, Aurora Glade.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I think the last couple of LS updates have done their best to improve on that.

True, they have tried to at least expand the ‘story’ part of the Living Story. I’m still not happy I was forced by the game to kill Scarlet though. It broke character for my elementalist.

siralius.9517:

Gw2 is to the world of MMO’s what a magazine is to the world of reading.

For instance, I went to the bookstore the other day, picked up a magazine and flipped through the pages. 50% of that magazine is advertisements trying to get the “reader” to buy stuff. The rest? More advertisements to get you to buy stuff, only they are in the form of articles; giving the reader the illusion they are actually reading things of substance.

Overall, there is really nothing to that magazine but shallow, 1 dimensional illusions of literature crafted for the process of revenue creation.

You my friend have explained perfectly how I currently feel about gw2.

I guess if you liked the LS you can see differently but like others have said there’s not much substance with it. Our characters are utterly superfluous, and the story and dialogue is poorly written. Example, Scarlet finally asks “aren’t you even curious why I did it?” The first thought that popped in my head was “Nope.” The story gave me no reason to empathize with her as a villain, and all I knew was that she was a big bad who did stuff, like attack Lion’s Arch because why not?

There’s no roles for the players to take here, we observe the events as they unfold kill the thing and then move on. There’s no choice in this story, the Personal Story is closer to being an RPG than the LS. At least in that story for a brief time we are the hero until our character gets eclipsed by Trahearne’s story. Having played through both the LS and the Personal Story, I liked the Personal Story better.

And this is my biggest problem with the LS/LW, too much focus is spent on it and not much has really come out of it, meanwhile other aspects of the game get no love. We need more quality of life updates, dungeon bug fixes, more class balance, and new skills wouldn’t hurt either.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I disagree. Roleplaying is something you can choose to do yourself. What matters in what degree the game facilitates the roleplaying. I think the last couple of LS updates have done their best to improve on that. For example, when the player, Kasmeer and Jory investigate the evidence. Or when we got to vote on LA’s new leader in cutthroat politics (a lot of players got into the spirit of that). And the battle for Lion’s Arch has stirred all sorts of roleplayers, especially on my own server, Aurora Glade.

I like your point. Cutthroat really was something to take in consideration when it comes to putting the players in charge, only if just an illusion of it.

But when you try to be many things inside something bigger, the small things get overshadowed. Still they shone a little bit here and there, all the while being true to its core. A magazine in the world of reading, it is but a humble tale when built by hundreds of people. to make a comparison, anet didn’t get even close to making what twich plays pokemon did. Still for the scope of it… their merits are honorable.
I’ve seen people arguing about characters and reasoning their beliefs, making jokes about their intent. That for me, among other things, is being part of the roleplay, as you’ve pointed out.

I don’t see how you disagree with me but to build on certain points. And don’t see me as a blind lover. I can see how much more it could be but only if i could explain how.

siralius.9517:

1 dimensional illusions … crafted for the process of revenue creation.

Welcome to business!

RP-wise, I had 2 choices: jump in and help at the request of my herald, or ignore it and let the NPCs/my server (deso) sort it out in my absence. Guess which one I picked.

They could have added an RP element by making the player choose wheter or not to finish her, and when they choose to save her, let an npc make the final blow, or a console exploding to take her out.

There, you now have an element of choice without it changing the general story one bit. Problem solved.

play SWToR and get back in GW, only then you can talk about a true RPG.
in GW2 we have interviews with text based choices, not that you can actually choose what you want on your own but whatever.
in SWToR you have a choice, more then often i need to look at the choices and decide more carefully on my next move.

in short, you should play some true RPG’s before calling this bland of white gue an RPG, i can already name 10 MMO’s with better RPG elements in it.

Yeah…No, it really didn’t.

GW2’s “Story” in the Living Story was a hodgepodge mess that felt like a bad fan fiction at best. The character development was terrible, the villain was awful, the plot was all over the place, and there was almost zero direction. Every update sounded like the brain child of, well, a child that thought “Oh it would be cool if we had this this time!”.

GW2’s story did not put the RPG back into MMORPG. If anything, it took it out. Final Fantasy XI, The Old Republic, Final Fantasy XIV, and yes, even World of Warcraft all have done a better job at putting a narrative into an MMO setting than GW2 did.

Guild Wars 2 failed on almost every level compared to it’s predecessors in telling a story line in an MMO. There was nothing compelling or interesting about it, and to say that it was simply means you probably should get out and play some more MMOs outside of Korean grinders.

This is a hard topic…
Meanwhile other MMOs offer a more-or-less well designed story path for the Class/Character, GW2 has a line where you can chose how would you kill 10 rats and which one will you skip this time. None of them are the best.
When speaking about RPG, we speaking about real decisions to make, and those effect your whole legend. Skyrim & Fallout offers situations that you can turn positive or negative. It’s up to you. Mass Effect has only illusions, but you can really save lifes.

Sadly, I did not met with any game that had trueRPG. Where there is a well connected like-o-meter towards factions, and any behavior you do has effect on your entire life.
Like if you can’t enter the Grove now because people know you by being agressive…
… But you would get in by proving your kindness somehow.

In games, its only makeable if it has a well designed system with huge variety of tasks.

RoyalPredator.9163:

This is a hard topic…
Meanwhile other MMOs offer a more-or-less well designed story path for the Class/Character, GW2 has a line where you can chose how would you kill 10 rats and which one will you skip this time. None of them are the best.
When speaking about RPG, we speaking about real decisions to make, and those effect your whole legend. Skyrim & Fallout offers situations that you can turn positive or negative. It’s up to you. Mass Effect has only illusions, but you can really save lifes.

Sadly, I did not met with any game that had trueRPG. Where there is a well connected like-o-meter towards factions, and any behavior you do has effect on your entire life.
Like if you can’t enter the Grove now because people know you by being agressive…
… But you would get in by proving your kindness somehow.

In games, its only makeable if it has a well designed system with huge variety of tasks.

its kinda unfair to compare an mmo with a single player rpg, with a single player, your choices can have more of an impact than an mmo, which needs to take into consideration every other player, the personal story did that well since it was personal to you, living story felt as though it was on set tracks rather than something we can influence – if there was a fail condition it’d be better rather than just “everything goes away in 2 weeks”
in the tower of nightmares – yes the remains of the tower are still there, but i think the progress bar was just a timer as supposed to an event counter showing the total antitoxin pumped into the core