Guild Wars 2

So I’m glad the story is written that way! Just wanted to add my own opinion that I’m quite happy the focus is on the tasks at hand, not my reputation.

It’s difficult to incorporate the PC in dialogue because you can’t be voiced, and the NPCs can’t use your name in voiced dialogue. I would rather it be this way because nothing much can come of pointing at the PC other than ego stroking.

For another thing, the teamwork with Destiny’s Edge 2. Compare the opening of LW1, where we were alone and completely in the dark and questioning norn refugees, to the start of LW2 – still confused, following a vague lead about out of control vines, but when we arrive there, we have five characters to greet us. Five characters we’ve been through quite a lot with already, who accept our presence with no big fuss because we’re already friends. And because the LW is time sensitive, we really have met these characters several months ago, which feels like a genuine growth of camaraderie.

They’re your guild, your warband, or your krewe. There’s a reason the different races have their unique words for banding together, it’s an important concept. It’s literally the name of the game, GUILD Wars, massive MULTIPLAYER online. I know it’s not all that great when you dislike the characters themselves, but with the diversity between them, there should be at least a couple you can be fond of.

If you want to be the only character saving the world, go play a single player game. This is not that game and I’m liking it. Picking out your PC to heap all of the praise on them would be immersion-destroying in this big, diverse world. I like that some characters haven’t heard of me. I like that the LW is drawing on the unique strengths of the cast – Kas doing her portals to help everyone, Taimi’s fangirling, and the bits that were just for fun, like Rox being allergic to something (?). These characters are supposed to be my friends, so I don’t want to be elevated above them. Like one of the devs said elsewhere, praise for your character is much better and feels more deserved when it’s done sparingly.

I LOVED that we got some race and class-specific dialogue! I really hope it’s something that continues! It added so much personality to the scene, making up for the fact we currently can’t voice speak. As a sylvari this played out especially well for me. With a number of sylvari gone rogue in the story, naturally my cohorts have questions about how that works, questions I am ACTUALLY able to answer. I noticed this happening a bit at the end of LW1, with Scarlet dead, people were showing signs of overt racism towards sylvari – including me. They don’t necessarily know I killed her, but they have growing distrust towards my kind. I’ve never enjoyed racism so much! It feels natural and pulls me in to the unfolding events. I now want to get to the bottom of everything so I can prove I’m not bad, that my people aren’t bad, and now that Soundless aren’t bad – I’m pretty privileged that the story works this way for a sylvari I know. But THANK YOU WRITERS I’M LIKING IT A LOT THANKS. THUMBS UP! I’m the sole plant hero in a group that may even be growing suspicious of my motives!

Speaking of plants, I still don’t get why people heap so much dislike on Trahearne. I got to have a partner to complete my wyld hunt with. Did I miss something, or are the loudest forum-going players just unable to fathom NPCs with developed goals? The world can’t just sit there inert waiting for you to do something so it can applaud. And with the immensity of the undertaking in the personal story, it would’ve been illogical to do it alone.

I didn’t like EVERYTHING in the update, like, I was hoping to have seen the last of the aspect powers, but I can appreciate how interesting they make an open world landscape. I hate jumping puzzles with really fiddly scaffolding and puddles you can’t see, but the other achievements are straightforward, exploration based, and I think it all came together nicely. The strength of the LW for me really is the addition of new areas and challenging ways to explore them.

The buyable episodes of LW is a fantastic compromise, so now people can play at their own pace but it still has the sense of ‘really’ occuring on the release date. The LS benefits, in my opinion, from being slightly time restricted so we feel like the whole world of Tyria develops gradually. It would lose a lot of impact if every update were simply permanent stuff.

Oh and kudos on the varied cast of female characters! It’s a delight, it really is. I hope if arenanet happens across any of the “WHERE R THE MENZ?!?!??” posts here it’s just a blur as they scroll past. Being in a hero group with just one man in it (and a sweet and sympathetic one at that) – WONDERFUL.

tl;dr – I don’t want the improvements in the Living World to go without positive reinforcement, don’t listen to the ME ME ME crowd, put in more female characters because they’re great

Pyreo.8517:

It’s difficult to incorporate the PC in dialogue because you can’t be voiced

How is that? Of course the PC can be voiced.
I think it’s pretty stupid the PC hasn’t recieved any new voiced dialogue since launch.

But I do agree that the update is really nice. It’s a step in the right direction.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Of course the PC can be voiced.
I think it’s pretty stupid the PC hasn’t recieved any new voiced dialogue since launch.

Well yes, it is physically possible. But I mean that they’re still working towards implementing it at this time.

They probably have all the DE2 voice actors pretty much on hand for these releases. Getting the voice actors of the player characters in is gonna require more planning so they can do it in as few sessions as possible, because those VAs were much more prolific. So they’re going to need to iron out a lot of that dialogue WAY before an actual release.

They’ve also scrapped the old cutscene system for its awkwardness and need to properly figure out the format from now on. I’d very much like new player character lines too, but I know there’s a few hurdles involved. Marjory, Rox, Braham, Taimi and Kasmeer are just five compared to 5 races x 2 genders.

Hopefully we can get more player-specific text dialogue, which is very rewarding for far less production cost, until the point where the player’s voice will be reincorporated.

VIVorcha.7853:

Then go watch a movie.

Video games are so that the player can actually influence events.

There are hardly ´any´ games that let a player actually influence events in any way. A Video is basically a movie (atleast in my native language a videotape holds a movie). So a video game, lets you live through a movie by being a part of it through a character in said movie.

Even table top RPGs mostly let you live through a story, and not ´make´ the story yourselves, and any table top GM with a restricted amount of time will let you choose to walk the meadow or the dark forest to end up at the enchanted castle. Sure you have some sense of control over your actions, but anything grand that has to be achieved in a limited amount of time will cut some corners.

Your thread should be called: Thumbs up Anet!, Pyreo, becasue I really believe that Arena net need some good critisim through all this qq that’s going on ^_^

And I agree with you. I just love what the story has come to. I Did also enjoy Scarlets attack on Lions Arch, and now I understand it even more after I went to her study in Dry Top. The plot thickens and I am so excited on what will happen next.

As a 99% Sylvari gamer (yes, all my lv 80’s are sylvari) I really enjoy that sylvari has this kind of part in the story. Since Sylvari cannot be corrupted and/or not be revived to undead I believe that being suseptable to a possible Mordremoth’s corruption is something good. Sylvar should not be the untouchable by everything :^)
Perhaps it’s now that sylvari is starting to grow up a little and know fear and causiousness? Excited to know more!

I want to share with you that this plot turned me into becoming alot more interested in Lore than I was before and I am reading through the wikis of both gw1 and gw2 to understand the history of guild wars world and what might come in the future.

I salute the writing team on arena net! ^_^/

Edit: I also believe that the “thin” story in the start of Living Story has been good. Because as a character living in Tyria, being new to it all none of us knew what was about to happen. It slowly built in more and more Lore into the story and making it more and more interesting by every patch that is coming. Well done!

I agree.

Although I’m in a bit of a weird position because even in single player games I don’t like my character to be the centre of attention when she can avoid it. I prefer Robin Hobb’s concept of the Catalyst – one who triggers a change that enables others to be heroes. (But without the near-constant injuries and torture and the emo moping.)

But IMO it also makes more sense in an MMO where there’s a good chance that even in instances you’ll be playing alongside other players. I always felt like a weak point in the GW1 storyline was the moment when an NPC announced that everyone in your party is Chosen, destined to take down the Mursaat. Even after they’ve established that there are quite a lot of Chosen (or were before the White Mantle started executing them) it seems like too much of a coincidence.

One thing I do disagree with however is why players don’t like Traherne. It varies between people but for me there’s three big issues:

• Unless you play a sylvari his introduction is very…abrupt. You’ve spent several missions getting to know your Order mentor, they briefly introduce you to Traherne at Claw Island and then in the space of 2 missions they’ve died and he’s taken their place in the story.
• The voice actor is so bland and indifferent. He says “We must defeat the dragons or they’ll destroy the world” the same way most people would say “Oh, we’re out of milk”. Every time I listen to him it’s very, very obvious I’m listening to an actor reading lines from a script out of context and it pulls me out of the story and makes any other flaws much more obvious.
• He doesn’t really have any character development. Right from the first moment you meet him he wants to clense Orr of corruption and his involvement in the story is just a steady progression towards that goal. He does slowly learn to be more confident and more of a leader, but because his generic combat quotes never change that only really comes through in cut scenes, in the same bored, indifferent voice he always uses.
  (Although it was funny when I watched a cut scene of him giving a ‘stirring’ speech about how the Pact would save Tyria, then the cut scene ended, he rushed into battle and immediately announced “This won’t end well”.)

I disliked the voices for my characters in GW1. They all sounded so smarmy. However, the GW2 voices have been great, and I would love to hear them come back.