Guild Wars 2

This.

Mass Effect’s story is far from original.

I am going to come in here and surprise everybody with a big YES, you are right! BUT! statement…

You are likely right, and ANet ‘stole’ this from ME, not to plagiarize them but to honour that specific game. Let’s not forget that a lot of GW developers are gamers too. And if you are an older true gamer (like one that played multiple genre’s through the times), then you will find A LOT of references to other games. Just to name one example, The Karka islands, they are (to me) a direct reference to a small little island in the Tuturial phase of ‘The Saga of Ryzom’, if you haven’t played that game you obviously wouldn’t know. But that little island is filled with crab like critters, and on the island there is always ‘one’ boss, when the boss is killed after a while, a new one forms (or rather, ‘in lore’, the crabs fight until one wins and becomes the boss, we never experience the fighting though). The familiarity even goes as far as some of the distinct movement of the critters…

BUT! For most longer term GW players this is never seen as plagiarism of an older game, it is seen as an older gamer referencing a game as a former fan in honour of said game… A nod so to say: ‘that was a cool game, we will use some of it and give it a twist of our own, while at the same time leave at least that much in tact that a gamer who has played it will experience it as an ’Easter egg’…

Great you played ME, and you loved ME, now GW borrows some of it (that can’t really be considered as original in the first place), but left it in tact in a sense that you are reminded of it, cool huh! … Now i do not know what you thought of mass effect, but your sig. says enough of what you think of GW2 … If it weren’t for the topic to have this eye opening conclusion from my end, as a longer GW player, that also played it’s fair share of other games, i wouldn’t have even given this obvious troll attempt and plagiarism accusation much attention. Guess you got me there, though i doubt you would have expected this from it all…

Guess if you don’t like the story, you can always try to find the other game references that are more then likely still all over the game…

Thuggernaut.1250:

ya’ll can argue about tropes archetypes and all that garbage to your hearts’ content. you can say Shakespeare or whoever you want did everything first for any kitten on earth anyway.

Naw, not worth the time. The original poster will never be convinced that Mass Effect didn’t originate the tropes mentioned in the first post.

What’s important in any story is if the reader/listener feels transported to another era and caught up in the trials and tribulations of the characters.

• When that happens, then no one cares about who had the idea first (which is why Hollywood Producers can successfully reduce so many movies to “boy meets girl” descriptions).
• When it doesn’t happen, then why bother caring if the plotline/ideas/characters were copied from another source? Bad stories aren’t any fun.

As a notable example, the Matrix stole its plot (and many of its details) from Philip K. four-letter-word-rhyming-with-Sick stories (among others), but that didn’t stop it from being a popular movie franchise, because it included a compelling story that transported people to another world for 2 hours. (Even as someone who didn’t enjoy the movies, I can respect and acknowledge their success…and the reasons for it.)

I heard mass effect also invented dialogue, space ships, and doin’ it.

Thuggernaut.1250:

Mass Effect:
1. Reapers awaken every 50000 years to consume life
2. Player experiences a vision of the reapers from a beacon (which he inadvertently triggered to save Ashley)
3. Player builds a multi-species coalition to fight reapers

Guild Wars 2:
1. Dragons awaken every 10000 years to consume magic
2. Player experiences a vision of dragons from Omadd’s machine (which he inadvertently triggered to save Taimi)
3. Player builds a multi-species Pact to fight dragons

I think anyone that saw the new cutscene from the most recent episode (that also played Mass Effect) instantly got a flashback to Commander Shepard. At first I thought that the writing got marginally better (compared to season one), but come on… now they’re blatantly ripping off another game with a threadbare plot to begin with?

And Mass Effect was ripped from the Star Control games. Seriously, there’s even racial parallels.

Thuggernaut.1250:

ya’ll can argue about tropes archetypes and all that garbage to your hearts’ content. you can say Shakespeare or whoever you want did everything first for any kitten on earth anyway. watch the youtube video from Mass Effect, then go and play the Omadd scene again.

Nope. I watched both enough times thanks to Spoiler Warning for one, and “The Great Alchemy and Moose” for the other.

You can argue all you want, I’ll just sigh and start pulling out plots from books which predate all this junk. We can start with “Memory Sorrow and Thorn” if you like, and how there are dream images a fair bit close to how Scarlet’s vision was described the first time around . . . a great pale tree and everything.

also, someone above mentioned Harbinger, now that would be straight cash. we could actually get a real villain into instead of these mindless dragon zombies. how about a dragon/Harbinger assumes direct control and taunts the kitten out of the boring useless destiny’s edge fools? and hopefully dispose of that obnoxious Taimi too.

So instead of mindless dragon zombies, mindless insectoid Collectors would be okay?

Please stop.

Elric.6971:

And Mass Effect was ripped from the Star Control games. Seriously, there’s even racial parallels.

And we are all happy campers. This topic makes me frumple.

I find it odd that people even consider debating the “tropes” when the OP clearly hasn’t researched far enough to realise that Arenanet began this dragon story before Mass Effect 1 even released…

Lord Krilik.3692:

I find it odd that people even consider debating the “tropes” when the OP clearly hasn’t researched far enough to realise that Arenanet began this dragon story before Mass Effect 1 even released…

That’s because it’s older than Mass Effect, anyway.

Thuggernaut.1250:

Mass Effect:
1. Reapers awaken every 50000 years to consume life
2. Player experiences a vision of the reapers from a beacon (which he inadvertently triggered to save Ashley)
3. Player builds a multi-species coalition to fight reapers

Guild Wars 2:
1. Dragons awaken every 10000 years to consume magic
2. Player experiences a vision of dragons from Omadd’s machine (which he inadvertently triggered to save Taimi)
3. Player builds a multi-species Pact to fight dragons

I think anyone that saw the new cutscene from the most recent episode (that also played Mass Effect) instantly got a flashback to Commander Shepard. At first I thought that the writing got marginally better (compared to season one), but come on… now they’re blatantly ripping off another game with a threadbare plot to begin with?

I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first example of a game using a storyline that has similarities with another game’s storyline. It happens all the time in most media. That includes not only video games, but movies and books as well. I think you’re sort of grasping at straws here…

Plus, not to mention, it doesn’t necessarily have to be stolen either. Games use similar plotlines all the time, that doesn’t mean they stole from each other. Just look at EverQuest 2 and World of Warcraft. They both launched with roughly similar gameplay and are still similar to this day. People accuse WoW of copying EQ2 and accuse EQ2 of copying WoW all the time. The truth is, they were developed at the same time. It was coincidence, as they were released two weeks apart from each other.

And by two weeks, I mean EverQuest 2 was released and then almost exactly two weeks later WoW was released. Though it could’ve been WoW first and EQ2 second but I think you get my point.

Thuggernaut.1250:

Mass Effect:
1. Reapers awaken every 50000 years to consume life
2. Player experiences a vision of the reapers from a beacon (which he inadvertently triggered to save Ashley)
3. Player builds a multi-species coalition to fight reapers

Guild Wars 2:
1. Dragons awaken every 10000 years to consume magic
2. Player experiences a vision of dragons from Omadd’s machine (which he inadvertently triggered to save Taimi)
3. Player builds a multi-species Pact to fight dragons

I think anyone that saw the new cutscene from the most recent episode (that also played Mass Effect) instantly got a flashback to Commander Shepard. At first I thought that the writing got marginally better (compared to season one), but come on… now they’re blatantly ripping off another game with a threadbare plot to begin with?

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/09/11/the-texas-sharpshooter-fallacy/

I cannot come up with a single fantasy story i read in the past decade that did not have an ancient evil or two rising from its millenia of slumber.

Visions of doom are just as common.

Strength in unity… you know the drill.

While i will freely admit that i was instantly reminded of the ME beacon scene at Omadds machine, that is because ME was good and left that imprint in my mind as a reference. The core of the story are a bunch of well-tested tropes.

If Arenanet wants to try and tell a story as well as Bioware has in the past then by all means…. Proceed.

Simpsons did it!

Nat.4029:

If Arenanet wants to try and tell a story as well as Bioware has in the past then by all means…. Proceed.

I am not sure I count Mass Effect as an example of Bioware’s better storytelling. So far, GW2’s story . . . as uneven as it is, has been about as I’ve witnessed the ME story been – really good with smaller character spots, overall it winds up lackluster and only “serviceable”.

Pretty much sums up how I felt about GW1’s story too.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Imperios.2543:

Now we only need to have a Harbinger-like dragon champion.

ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL

Read that with Mr Sparkles voice in my head.

CharrGirl.7896:

You know, I played all ME games and I never once thought about it. Nor do I care. If you feel it rips off certain story elements just remember that it’s extremely difficult to create something 100% original and unique these days, and it does not automatically mean that it’s ripping something off.

Please…

No it just mean their lazy

Nat.4029:

If Arenanet wants to try and tell a story as well as Bioware has in the past then by all means…. Proceed.

You can’t say stuff like that when “The Ending” and Dragon Age 2 are still fresh in our minds.

Erukk.1408:

Nat.4029:

If Arenanet wants to try and tell a story as well as Bioware has in the past then by all means…. Proceed.

You can’t say stuff like that when “The Ending” and Dragon Age 2 are still fresh in our minds.

Or not even The Ending but Kai Leng . . .

The right chronological order:
1) Dragons awaken
2) Pact is formed by 3 orders
3) Our character experiences the vision in Omadd’s machine

OP get your facts straight and don’t troll much

Leo.2641:

CharrGirl.7896:

You know, I played all ME games and I never once thought about it. Nor do I care. If you feel it rips off certain story elements just remember that it’s extremely difficult to create something 100% original and unique these days, and it does not automatically mean that it’s ripping something off.

Please…

No it just mean their lazy

No it means they’re not omniscient because you need super natural powers to know every possible story ever create in order to do something thats 100% original if its even possible.

Just think about it, countless legends, mythologies, religions, historical accounts, books, inventeded stories told around campfires, tv series, radio series, movies, poems, haikus… the number of stories out there is incredibly large.

Lets put it like this, lets assume you wanted to avoid being lazy and ensure your story idea wasnt done before… You’d need to check all of those.. It would take more then a life time. But never mind all of that. Consider there are 6000 new books published every single day.. if it takes a person 8hrs to read every single book. If every single employee at arenanet worked 24/7 reading those 6000 books by the time they’d be done they’d have 12,000 new books to check. By the time they’re done checking those they’d have 24,000 new books to check and then 48k etc… and this before they’ve written a single line of text or checked all past books / other media etc…

It is simply impossible to check every story and without checking its impossible to be sure what you’re doing hasnt been done before, if it is even possible to do something entirely original anymore.

Btw while we’re on subject, if anything omadd’s machine reminds me more of the total perspective vortex from the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy rather then the beacon from ME

Filaha.1678:

Mass Effect invented recurring invasions!
Mass Effect invented visions!
Mass Effect invented armies of multiple races!

You heard it here first!

Anyone else likes Lovecraft with his adorable Ancient Ones?

Bubi.7942:

Anyone else likes Lovecraft with his adorable Ancient Ones?

Fun fact, H.P. didn’t write a lot of the mythos usually associated with him. His friends wrote a lot of it and they had a sort of “shared fiction” they all understood and worked within a certain frame of reference.

“Ancient Ones”, I think, was an invention of one of such friends. I want to say it was August Derleth but it’s been years since I was big into reading the books for details. (I was running a tabletop session and really wanted to get the atmosphere right.)

Anyway, have we established yet both the notions of GW2’s Living Story not being ripped directly from Mass Effect, and Mass Effect not being the first to use this particular plot trope?

. . . I mean, if you want a softer target, go dig up Neverwinter Nights and its main antagonist Morag. Compare the idea of a scaly, cold-blooded race of ancient times being reunited with their “god” to rule the world through magic rocks . . .

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Bubi.7942:

Anyone else likes Lovecraft with his adorable Ancient Ones?

Fun fact, H.P. didn’t write a lot of the mythos usually associated with him. His friends wrote a lot of it and they had a sort of “shared fiction” they all understood and worked within a certain frame of reference.

“Ancient Ones”, I think, was an invention of one of such friends. I want to say it was August Derleth but it’s been years since I was big into reading the books for details. (I was running a tabletop session and really wanted to get the atmosphere right.)

Huh, the more you know I guess. I was under the impression that many writers lifted from him, or even published under his name (and he was using many alternative names as well) so a lot of ‘his’ stories are unsure to be his to begin with. Never knew about this collaborative workthing.

I just can’t wait for the Water Dragon ‘Bubbles’ o be associated with Dagon. Dagon, Dragon? Coincidence?

Rangersix.1754:

Dear OP, watch Babylon 5. Mass Effect is almost copy&pasted from that series.

QFT. Anyone who’s seen B5 will know this to be true. I’m a big fan of the ME games probably because they are so like B5 and I loved that show. It ran in the mid to late 90’s or late 90’s early 2000’s. I can’t quite remember.

Comparisons to other games are fine, but they should ultimately stay relevant to Guild Wars 2. Since this has turned more into a discussion about Mass Effect, I am assuming direct control to close this thread.