Guild Wars 2

I’ve heard this a lot on the forums and I think the new Trailer really highlights it. The PC (Player Character, AKA you) really isnt part of the Living Story. The PC is more of a sidekick, which is quite counter-intuitive. The PC is us, the players. Why do we want to be a sidekick?

If your wondering why Im bringing up the Entanglement Trailer as a reason for this, I’ll explain. There is a scene in it where “the gang” as I’ma call them, Majory, Cass, Rox, etc, are all walking together. Its basically the traditional image of I what imagined a D&D party to be. But the issue is I see no representation of my player in that scene when I feel I’m a part of “the gang” so to speak. I mean, I certainly helped take down Scarlet, and I’ve already helped take down some lunatic Slyvari (not discussing that here though).

I know the main objection to this is that “well thousands of people play, they cant put your character in” and I know. I just want some representation. In other large RPG’s, such as Skyrim and Mass Effect, there are base models of the Dragonborn and Shepard, respectively, that are used in the trailers. Suddenly when I see those, I feel like I’m actually there, not just watching some characters fight and I’m sitting on the sidelines.

tl;dr Living Story isn’t supposed to be a movie, its supposed to be an immerse experience, or so I thought. So lets make it more immerse by making the PC more relevant.

Can’t you just headcanon your own character into these trailers? Maybe that gunslinging Asura is your PC, for example. :P Or that your character was walking ahead/behind of the group in those shots.

Zaxares.5419:

Can’t you just headcanon your own character into these trailers? Maybe that gunslinging Asura is your PC, for example. :P Or that your character was walking ahead/behind of the group in those shots.

Yeah but you’re missing the point. Look at this Mass Effect 3 Trailer.
(Warning: This is a Trailer for an M Rated Game)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBktyyaV9LY

Its a great Trailer. The first two minutes give some background as to whats happening and then at 2:25 we get the reveal: Shepard. We dont just see the Marines, we see Shepard leading the marines and we see Shepard leading tanks and we see Shepard’s ship the Normandy fighting the reapers. In my mind, this is huge. I feel like when I’m playing as Shepard, I now have a purpose. Im not just watching a film.

I dont know if I’m the only one who feels that way though.

Yeah, I see your meaning. However, I reacted in almost the opposite way when it came to Shepard (and Hawke from the Dragon Age series). I never really felt that Shepard and Hawke were MY characters. Rather, they were more like actors who were reading a script that I had given to them. They never quite get the inflections or the wording I wanted them to say right, and over time, you start to feel like Shepard and Hawke have their own distinct personality beyond the motivations you give to them.

I prefer the “less is more” approach when it comes to RPGs, such as the way the protagonist was handled in the Baldur’s Gate series, and Dragon Age: Origins. They largely leave your own character’s personalisation to your own imagination.

I’m sure if they did put a character to represent the PC, 4/5th of the races would comment on why it wasn’t their race represented.

Better to leave it to one’s imagination, I fear.

You compare an MMO where you can play various races to the single player games where you can play only one race (Mass Effect) or humanoid race which can be easily disguised in some armor (Skyrim). The point is, if there would be some representation of a player, let’s say an Asura necro, there would be many people whining why Asura, why not Norn or Charr or human and why necro.

Anet just wants to give you a sneak peak of what’s happening next. By the way, there are many references to your character and to your personal story in the last episode.

So ur actually asking them to make the trailers more first person view, so u would feel immersion and a part of it.

Personally I’m fine with not being the centre of attention, Taima already recocnized my Asura’s knowledge in the Snaff golemancy contest and even offered him to become a coauthor about Scarlet. If you want to be in the centre of attention there are many games out there that do that, because they don’t have to deal with thousands of different people in the same game and story at the same time. There is only so much they can do with their resources. Your character has been getting involved alot in this investigation but you are part of a group, not some allmighty hero that can do everything nobody else can like thousands of other stories told through games.

ingame they could talk to us players and say thing like..back then when u did this in your living story (as they are already starting to do)
and the trailers..

why do you even show destinys edge 2.0 ?

i mean after watching the trailer i feel like mhmh.. my team mates already were here… im the noob >_<
just some random character models exploring the dangers of the new update
(like vigil/pakt guy getting some problems)

or some native creatures doing their stuff..

so that for those of us who di watc hthe trailer get the feeling that were discovering it together with our destinys edge
(during story isntances probly)

leviathan.2148:

You compare an MMO where you can play various races to the single player games where you can play only one race (Mass Effect) or humanoid race which can be easily disguised in some armor (Skyrim). The point is, if there would be some representation of a player, let’s say an Asura necro, there would be many people whining why Asura, why not Norn or Charr or human and why necro.

Anet just wants to give you a sneak peak of what’s happening next. By the way, there are many references to your character and to your personal story in the last episode.

Thats why I made the arguement that a preset character used in the Trailers to represent the PC would be good, but you are probably right that people would whine. The only two things I could counter to the whining are A: Ignore it or B: Make a preset look for each race and have a shot where it transitions to “the gang” walking but fades from PC race to PC race.

And I get there were references to my character. But Trahearne, one of the biggest sources of story qq, also made “references” to my character. References are nice, but I’m just saying having some sort of representation of the PC would be dabes.

My personal opinion. I dont want a me, myself and i situation when playing guildwars. I want to be part of a greater story side by side with a band of heroes (npcs and pcs). You need computer characters to tell a story (just like in a tv series with the actors).
I think if that wasnt the case guildwars would turn into a (virtual) reality soap (just like the terrible reality soap programs on tv).
I personaly like the trailers like they are right now btw.

I noticed something an a different thread here that the blueprint in Scarlet’s room (see attatched) may be Omadd’s machine. Now look the Asuran looking structure at 21 seconds into the trailer. Are we actually going to see Omadd’s machine? And if we are, are we going to use it?

This is how I answer why my character isn’t in the demo.
——————————————————————————————————————
I went on ahead because unlike the rest of my team, I actually do all the leg work, recon and fact finding. They’re only just now catching up per my relay back to them.

Personally, if I had to comment on this trailer, I rather see a placecard character for the player character instead of nothing at all.

I wouldn’t care if it was a sylvari, asura, norn, human or charr – male or female – engineer/mage/mesmer/necro/ranger/warrior/thief or guardian. As long as someone IS in that shot with D.E. 2.0 then that’s all that matters to me because at least that means the player character matters. I would like to hope that players are smart enough to know that there’s a myriad amount of possibilities for the player character to look like and just cuz they use one doesn’t mean it precludes others.

Fade away shots are perfect for this. As soon as you zoom in on the character, it starts to fade…

I’m sure if there was a way to make every player see their own main character in the trailer, they’d do that. There just… isn’t. At least not for the trailers they release through their website, social networks and stuff.

I find it a stretch to use this “fact of life” (and at this point in time it is one) to conclude that your character plays no central role in the story. I certainly don’t feel that way.

What is this obsession with the PC being the main guy. I am perfectly content being one of the main guys but part of a bigger picture.

I don’t know about you and I can’t speak for the posts of others, but I’m pretty sure my post was picking up on the fact that being part of the team should include visible representation in that team.

I don’t even care at this point what pre-rendered placecard would be used because I’m just at the point where anything is better than nothing. (Which is really a sad place for me to be at when I start thinking that good enough is better than simply being good.)

I do feel I need to add that if the demo we watched are just shots to showcase what’s in the game, but not cut –scenes that occur in the story then that’s okay having D.E. 2.0 appearing without the PC as I can rationalize that PC is elsewhere doing the things that need to get done for this group to survive. (Afterall we do the grunt load of all work, we were probably scouting ahead and sent a relay back not to mention as a leader/boss we’re expected to do the boring work they don’t want to show in the trailer – hey Trahearne, I gave up paperwork with you to do paperwork for these guys.)

The problem that might occur though is if these are actual cut scenes that will occur in game, then there’s no real excuse to leave the PC out and not use a placecard for the demo. I think most people would understand the necessity of what a placecard is and accept it. (And yes there will be those people complaining, so you had an Asura in that shot, but I play a sylvari, should have used a sylvari… it is human nature to complain… a lot.)

So, I guess people complain if they do, and people complain if they don’t. It’s unfortunate for the Devs.

Chokolata.1870:

What is this obsession with the PC being the main guy. I am perfectly content being one of the main guys but part of a bigger picture.

I don’t think it’s about being “the main guy” but rather recognition. Think Elder Scrolls, everyone reverse to for being The Champion of Kovach or The Dragonborn who saves the Empire/Stormcloaks. People don’t like some minor character who ends up taking center stage using you as their idol in which they rouse the crowd with. That’s what Traehern did, he knew what we were doing for him and even looked to us for council but in the public eye he was the one above everyone giving a speech of encouragement.

Personally I don’t care much either way. I don’t need recognition for good deeds but I can see why people didn’t like Kormir and furthermore weren’t fond of Traehern either.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

So, I guess people complain if they do, and people complain if they don’t. It’s unfortunate for the Devs.

You can’t make everyone happy. Many will complain just for the sake of complaining, some love their soap-boxes.

The problem is in comparing ME trailers to GW2 trailers for living story is that… ME has a preset, default Shepard they can use.

GW2 doesn’t have a preset, default hero they can use. And more then likely, a huge chunk of people would see the trailer, note the unknown person walking with DE (Let’s say they used one of their unnamed characters in previous trailers that never appeared ingame or such), and instantly go “Wait, who is that?” Or, when the release comes about and said person isn’t anywhere to be found around the biconics, go “Wait, who is that and why didn’t they appear at all ingame?”

At this point, shoving a generic character in to ‘represent the player’ isn’t really a good idea.