Guild Wars 2

Zaklex.6308:

Just to point out again, not all of the episodes have ended in a cliffhanger, which is: “A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction. A cliffhanger is hoped to ensure the audience will return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma.” Let’s use Ep. 7 as the example, did our character get left in precarious or difficult dilemma? No, we weren’t, it was neither precarious or difficult…just a stone door locked behind some magic. Did our characters have something shocking revealed to them…here again the answer is No. What we were left with was far from a cliffhanger, but instead just a point of the story where the actual ‘cliffhanger’ like story will be or should be revealed in the next episode.

You may not perceive a stone door locked for decades by magic as a difficult situation, but our characters clearly did. They had to go to the greatest source of knowledge in the (accessible) world to try and figure out what it even meant, and then open it. On the other side of the door is a secret that might possibly save all of Tyria.

Just because the tension maybe wasn’t built up to a degree that we as players feel the gravitas of this situation doesn’t mean this isn’t a cliffhanger; it’s just a weak one.

Wait, GW2 LS has a story?
With the eternally long distances between episodes, I have pretty much forgotten most of it.

Zaklex.6308:

Just to point out again, not all of the episodes have ended in a cliffhanger, which is: “A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction. A cliffhanger is hoped to ensure the audience will return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma.” Let’s use Ep. 7 as the example, did our character get left in precarious or difficult dilemma? No, we weren’t, it was neither precarious or difficult…just a stone door locked behind some magic. Did our characters have something shocking revealed to them…here again the answer is No. What we were left with was far from a cliffhanger, but instead just a point of the story where the actual ‘cliffhanger’ like story will be or should be revealed in the next episode.

Two answers:

First, Glint’s unborn child is in a precarious position (or seems to be, anyway).

Second, it can be a cliffhanger if a big revelation is teased at but not revealed just as much as if it is revealed just before the proverbial credits roll – and that’s definitely what happened here.

Gibson.4036:

IMO, it’s deeper than the cliffhangers. The Living Story is patterning itself off of linear media, like television and single-player RPGs. Problem is, this is an MMO, which really asks for a non-linear story development.

ArenaNet was on to something when they originally designed the game with web-structured, holistic stories across regions of Tyria by means of dynamic events. This is the kind of non-linear storytelling makes so much sense in a game where thousands of people are playing in persistent world. It allows a player to immerse herself into an ongoing story and explore in a non-linear fashion, putting the pieces together across a zone or zones until the big picture emerges.

Yes, the DE system has its issues. Many of them break down immersion because they cycle too often and don’t have quite enough links and branches to feel like complex interactions among the different factions in a zone. That isn’t, however, an inherent flaw in the DE concept. It’s just a sign of it’s immaturity. Early on ArenaNet talked about having the structure to keep adding more DEs to zones and change them as things developed. It would have been amazing to see that happen, watching the stories in the various regions of the world gain complexity and depth over time, rather than episodic, limited time additions that further a linear story.

Unfortunately, it feels like ArenaNet decided too quickly that holistic storytelling was a mistake, and fell back on the tried and true.

I think of it like the early days of most media. When a new technology enables a new form of expression, the natural habit is to mimic a similar medium that went before. You see it in very early film, which tried to imitate theatrical storytelling, until filmmakers understood more about how film could uniquely tell story.

The Living World/Story tries to function like a medium with a single, primary protagonist even though this game has thousands of players adventuring, often together, as well as trying to follow a linear cause-effect even though we have a wide open, persistent world.

Yes, most MMOs that aren’t completely sandbox go that way. At the beginning, however, GW2 looked like it was going to find a way to tell stories that really fit a themepark MMORPG, rather than shoe-horning in a single-player kind of story. I expect as MMORPGs continue to evolve eventually someone will find a way to tell a story that is uniquely suited to the media.

This is a very accurate, good post with conclusion I can agree with. +1.

Very insightful, Gibson. I agree as well.

I don’t know if ANet’s tech would allow this, but having branching outcomes individual to the player based on player choices might help quite a bit. TESO does that, to a limited extent. In quest dialogues you can choose from a few options, and sometimes that has a permanent effect. I was gut-wrenched when I chose a way to help a would-be comedian — and he got murdered before my eyes, when the other path of the quest would have had him live. Since then I’ve thought really hard about options. Do I turn in a killer to the detective? Do I protect him based on his pure motives? It works there because they phase content based on individual progress without hiding players from each other, so I can see a dead body where my friend sees a living jokester. Some continuity issues, of course. Yet the thing is I feel deeply invested in the story I have encountered, because I know I affected it. It’s a lot more Choose Your Own Adventure than the LS currently allows.

If we only had Tolkein as the lead writer..

nGumball.1283:

If we only had Tolkein as the lead writer..

Then we’d have entire episodes filled with descriptions of things, with nothing happening.

I’m immensely glad that threads like this do exist, it really enforces the fact that what of the story has been produced thus far, people love (a vast swing for the twistless and predictable story we had early Guild Wars 2), enough to be passionate about it. I do hope the OP’s comments follow through to the right ears.

Sinbold.8723:

nGumball.1283:

If we only had Tolkein as the lead writer..

Then we’d have entire episodes filled with descriptions of things, with nothing happening.

Not to mention the lead NPCs would be singing songs all the time.

I’m not sure if this has already been brought up since Ive only read about half the comments here but…

I do agree there has been wayyy to many cliffhangers and open threads this season and it makes it very hard to keep track of. One technique shows use to help to reconnect those open threads are recaps at the start of an episode to go over main points that help reengage the audience as to what all the open threads of the season has been. This is definitely one option guild wars could take if they plan on continuing this barrage of open threads…

Besides the crazy amount of open threads this season I think the worst one is leaving the thread from season 1 still open…we never understood why scarlett released mordy.

If Anet is trying to be similar in story elements as TV and movies they really haven’t done a great job of filling this thread yet. In most TV and movies a huge cliffhanger like this would have been filled in the first or second episode of the second season…i know some people will disagree with me on this issue but I feel like all we learned about scarlet in the first couple episodes was still very minimal to explain her actions.

I also know the trailers for the next episode usually do a minor recap but something in game might be helpful for players that aren’t always watching every trailer that comes out as well as cinematic that recap EVERY plot thread they have left open over the season would be great.

Tom Gore.4035:

Speaking of writing plots for episodic drama, such as TV-series or games like this, I think Babylon 5 sets the baseline for writing. The series was written to be specifically 5 seasons long, with the plot set before the pilot was ever filmed. This in an era where you will never get funding for a TV-series for more than one season ahead.

This allowed the writers to put in a lot of stuff you saw clearly, but didn’t realize until it came apparent later in the story and wen’t “holy kitten it was there the whole time!”

I hope Anet has written the plotline for GW2 until the very end of the game’s future, then went back and added small stuff along the way that we won’t or just can’t figure out before we come to the spot where they are revealed, but immediately can connect to previous stuff and get that “holy kitten” feeling.

But I’m afraid they’ve just got very vague lines of what they plan to do and the plot is being written as we go…

I’m going to second hoping Anet has taken a page from Babylon 5’s book and have written out the whole thing first.

In fact they need to have mandatory Babylon 5 nights and watch the whole series, very good example of what the living story should (could) be.

The other thing that could be causing cliffhanger overload is that for an mmo, episodes may just be too short of a content type. Would it help if they aimed more for a mini-series content like feel? Maybe clumping the episode content into four bigger mini-series, with a few puzzles, dungeon updates/addons, and pvp maps thrown in-between make the living story feel like a smoother experience?

BrotherNumsie.8123:

In fact they need to have mandatory Babylon 5 nights and watch the whole series, very good example of what the living story should (could) be.

Well Babylon 5 wasn’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea. Mind you I would love it if ANet had some long term plans. Currently it feels like they’re mostly going season to season.
Mind you they better not do a Babylon 5 and go from elder alien races war-ing for the future of the entire human race to boring boring boring psychics and spy nonsense. Although maybe they already did that when going from Zhaitan to Scarlet.

That was the result of a change of plans after the original plan – there was a point where there was a concern that B5 would only get 4 seasons, so JMS cut out some of the less essential stuff from S4 so he can fit the intended climax of the series in before it got cut. When it was confirmed that he WOULD get a fifth season after all, it was too late for him to reverse that, so S5 lost its intended climax and became partly the re-implementation of less important story elements that had intended to be stretched through Seasons 4 and 5, and partly setting up for planned sequels.