Guild Wars 2

This is an idea that came to my mind as a sort of “what if” perspective of things we could do that might make the living story more interesting and give us an easier way of telling the origins of a character.

Basically, the idea goes like this:

Origin Stories

Origin Stories are basically a series of mini side missions where you play from the perspective of the companion npc’s giving you more insight into the people you’re supposed to care about in Gw2 from a personal viewpoint.

How does one attain them:

Each Side Story comes in a single episode per season, focusing on one character per season which costs 200 gems (thus an average season episode) for the entire story.

What does each story entail?

For example, lets take Marjory and her story in the Ministry Guard.

Rather than read the short story version of this, the player PLAYS a younger Marjory in a Ministry Attire, the story told in a film noir style with Jory speaking in first person dictations about whats going on and her feelings about it.

This could basically be how she meets Mendel, fails to save him, and in turn goes on to meet and save Kasmeer.

Why 200 Gems? Why not Free?

Unlike the main Season Stories these are purely optional for people that really are invested into the world and thus charging for them means A-net gets a small profit (or none at all given how easy it is to farm 200 gems) while you purchase a bonus chapter that gives you a detailed history of a few short episodes of who that character is, from their POV.

What other opportunities could we invest in?

Examples:

- Villain origins: see from Ceara’s eyes exactly what she saw in the mists and what drove her to become Scarlet Briar in the first place. See how Mai-Trin became the commanding Admiral of the Aetherblade Pirate Alliance.
- Destinies Edge Events: See first hand the present goings on of the DE cast as well as DE 2.0 from multiple perspective view points.
- Rewards: Receive special rewards for completing these quests, e.g. special armor or weapons or even face/hair skins only attainable via the side stories.

How viable is this?

Given the time and effort it takes to make a single episode of Living Story, it would probably be best to integrate these during a features patch at the end of each season arc as a bonus chapter for those hungry for one last thing before A-net takes their usual monthly break.

Its not undo-able but it is time consuming.

Is it worth it?

Entirely, lets face it, what better way is there to motivate you to care about a companion than to “play” them and thus see the world from their eyes, see what they care about, why you should feel interest in them, why it matters if they die or something bad happens to them.

In Conclusion:

I feel this would be a great way to make people more personally interested in the long term chars of GW2 and give us a more clear reason to ‘care’ about the minor and major chars of the setting.

Thoughts?

I’d be behind this idea and buy every one of them. Guild Wars 1 had a bonus mission pack where you played Historical missions that took you into the past of a Hero from each Expansion. Each of them had a unique skillbar and mission dynamics associated with their situation. While they were just single missions, they were fun, action packed scenarios that let you play the heroes directly. They also had account bound bonus skins you could only get by completing the missions.

There are plenty of heroes in the game I think people would enjoy doing this with and there are many that could be fleshed out a bit more story-wise with an actual historical mission dedicated to them. Playing a mission of that character’s past is a great way to learn and connect with the heroes/villains of the game in a way that short stories do not capture. Destiny’s Edge characters, The Living Story Heroes/Villains, and other key characters in the game are all viable.

Wouldn’t it be a fun thing if every 2-3 months we got a new ‘Historical Mission’? That or maybe take 6-12 Months and put together a good pack of missions and release them for $10 real money like the GW1 set.

I’d support this. I enjoyed the Bonus Mission Pack in GW1 and the ability to see how momentous events in the past really played out.