Server: Piken Square
Leader of Dark Shines [Dsh]
(edited by Iridiana.9078)
Hi!
Since the beginning of the Living Stories you were publishing some interesting blog posts with flashbacks about the main characters.
- One post about Braham’s father death
- One post about Rox’s past with her warband
- A video with two devs explaining in details Flame & Frost
- An introduction (which seemed to me a bunch of spoilers) about The Secret of Southsun Cove
- One post about Ellen Kiel meeting and protecting Lady Kasmeer
- A new video with a dev talking in details about Consortium
I mean… why all these tales/explanations are OUTSIDE the game?
Was it too hard to prepare some IN-GAME cinematics about the main characters past?
Or why couldn’t my character talk with a video (like the video of characters talking in the normal personal story) with Braham/Rox/Ellen and listening about their past with an in-game experience.
I’m an old RPG player (I mean board-game Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun, etc.) and I think there is a big difference in what a player knows and what his own character experiences/knows. It reminds me of certain Dungeon Masters spoilering everything to their players while their characters play only a few and know nothing.
I want to experience the Living Story IN THE GAME. I don’t want to read blog posts in order to understand something more. Players who don’t read these posts or watch videos are missing something about the main characters and the story plot.
I think that if you want people to feel attached to these new characters you have to give them more importance in the game.
There is such little story in-game, the dialogues in “Secret of Southsun Cove” are so short and useless… All I know comes from your blog posts, if I’d only play in Southsun Cove I would have understood very little about what is happening.
I want a REAL story with strong dialogues and videos in the game, not only some events and a few “click-click awww boring, she/he’s saying nothing” dialogue-windows with NPCs in game.
(edited by Iridiana.9078)
I quote everything in Iridiana’s post. I totally agree.
I agree too, why not creating small lore-books with this blogpost-content… these could be rewards for getting all achievements of the Living Story content for example.
+ a first step in creating more of those books which are hidden in the open world and there for people to pick up and read whenever they want.
I honestly think I’m the only one in my guild (Europe) who reads Anet blog posts. It’s kind of sad that this storytelling is missed by a lot of people.
Ye ive also discussed something similar like this with people. It just feels like a very weird perspective when I learn about all this lore outside the game. Its unnecessary and spoilerish. They need to be creative and implement these tales inside the game. Especially braham and rox’s story, it was so ruined by turning it into a blog post. If they want to delve more in depth about lore, do it through a book, not a blog post. Otherwise save it for npc dialogue or other lore-expressing means.
I honestly think I’m the only one in my guild (Europe) who reads Anet blog posts. It’s kind of sad that this storytelling is missed by a lot of people.
I think there are 2-3 people in my guild reading blog posts (we are around 25 of 130 online in the evening); usually we talk about these tales in voice chat, so even players who don’t read the blog can hear about the lore.
I agree too, why not creating small lore-books with this blogpost-content… these could be rewards for getting all achievements of the Living Story content for example.
+ a first step in creating more of those books which are hidden in the open world and there for people to pick up and read whenever they want.
If they want to delve more in depth about lore, do it through a book, not a blog post. Otherwise save it for npc dialogue or other lore-expressing means.
This idea of ingame books reminds me about GW1 and the book telling about the past of the NPC Zho and how she lost her eye. In this book, in addition to the tale, there were also some hints for an ingame scavenger hunt which let the players craft a mini black moa in the end! It was one of the coolest “living story” I’ve ever played.
Moreover I think GW2 devs have already shown the ability to tell stories ingame. Do you remind about Halloween and the quest about the past of the Mad King? Following the hints and talking with various NPCs every player could learn about the life of King Thorn and get an item related to him.
I think this was the way to get players involved…
Do you remind about Halloween and the quest about the past of the Mad King? Following the hints and talking with various NPCs every player could learn about the life of King Thorn and get an item related to him.
I think this was the way to get players involved…
I loved this scavenger hunt, but it would have been even more exiting, if you had such a book I’m talking about to read about his history whenever you like once you’ve completed the scavenger hunt. I can barely remember the story and would need to look it up in the wiki. Ingame would be the better more engaging choice.
Diablo 3 (as bad as it was) did some great things in this department
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQqh5vc7-Hk
even GW1 had kind of such a thing
http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/0/0c/Storybook.jpg
this would also work much better for Living Story as achievements as a guide.
Agreed, I’d much rather have all this stuff in-game than just have everything on blogs and developer videos. I’d rather the game explain itself than need a bunch of supplementary materials you need to go online to read.
In-game cutscenes or actual dialogue with the characters would be nice (I can certainly imagine something like the Kiel / Kasmeer meeting as a voiced, in-game cutscene), but if thats too ambitious then in-game books / journals would be sufficient as well. As long as its in the game somewhere.
Maybe you could have blog posts AS WELL, that give the same information but in a different format in case people do prefer to read their lore outside of the game. I’m sure some people are like that, they want to play the game when they’re playing the game and maybe read a bit of lore during periods when they can’t actually play. But having it only outside the game in blogs is just not a very ideal situation, IMO.
Yeah, totally, a codex of some sorts would be ideal and I’d love it.
We need better Cinematics. The only reason people are only giving importance to loot is because the story is bad – I mean, badly presented. If they want to have the best MMO in the market they should invest in cinematics. I love the lore of Guild Wars, I played for years and for me it is good to the level of a Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. But I have to be honest, the same is not happening with GW2, but it is not the story, I just hoped that the Cinematics of GW2 would be better than the first one.
in GW1 we can see scenes in places where our character is not present, as the scenes of Varesh and Shiro and I miss it. Everything is now shown only where your character is… I know there are limitations of the engine and do not know if they are working on it… I accept even a loading screen before and after the cinematic just to see it well made.
In alpha videos the character movement and mouth was robotic during conversations but then improved it a lot… I hope that the technology used to improve this can be used on characters talking in the real scenario.
This may seem much secondary but I give a lot of value to it, never thought I would like the lore of the WildStar but now I’m in the hype just because of the movement of the characters during cinematics which are perfect and VO are good… I will not stop playing GW2 because of it, but I think I will play both games and for some reason I feel that WS may have more success in this area and GW2 on e-sport.
other thing… i remember they talked about the end of wall of text… I’m not seeing it happen.
Well right now we have another nice blog post about Canach’s story…
2-3 days ago I asked in voice chat to my guild friends if they remember Canach… Silence… Only one player answered “I think he was a NPC we had to fight during Lost Shore… He was near a skill-point”. This is how people feel about the lore… there’s nothing remarkable they can remember easily. I had to read on the wiki who was Canach during Lost Shore too…
And what happened between Lost Shore and Secret of Southsun Cove? We know something thanks to the recent blog post. But there’s more! Yesterday I read in the forum section “dev tracker” a dev writing a post explaining why Canach’s appearance has changed. If you miss this post in the forum you can’t know nothing about that!!!
I mean… It seems that the devs are are telling stories each other while players know nothing. It’s all in their mind… and what you can feel and learn while playing the game is only a little part of the “big plot” we are never going to understand.
I have a question about the Southsun Cove adventure. I am lvl 52, How do I get to the island where this is happening? If I can’t get to the island please tell me how to get the stupid notice off my screen. It drives me crazy!
thanks,
Qmeryen Winterhawk
Sanctum of Rall Server
(edited by Dailyn.9804)
a ship from Lions Arch. You should have a mail which explains that.
hrmmm maybe I deleted the email by accident. I dont see one in my inbox. Is there a way to have them resend it to me?
Dailyn
Not affiliated with ArenaNet or NCSOFT. No support is provided.
All assets, page layout, visual style belong to ArenaNet and are used solely to replicate the original design and preserve the original look and feel.
Contact /u/e-scrape-artist on reddit if you encounter a bug.