Guild Wars 2

Something I think Season 2 and Heart of Thorns suffered from was “Deaths” for the sake of death, of characters we never knew, or got to really care about, and this is not a good thing.

Death has to “mean” something if its going to happen, so let me give you a headsup warning about it in advance.

Spoilers from here on

You were warned

Everyone that didnt want spoilers gone? Good, right, moving forwards.

Id like to give an example of how a good death can happen, vs how a bad death can happen in GW2, and point out a few tips as to why it was good and why it was bad, for A-net to remember in the future.

Example Of Good Death: The Mentors

To be entirely honest, these guys had the best potential death in the series, their death was actually meaningful and their role to play genuinley hurts you when it finally happens. It could have been prevented, but the build up was there, it wasnt like it hadent been signed to you that these guys werent going to kick the bucket, because they definately were.

But the thing that made this good is that you couldnt have possibly known that “until” the battle for claw isle, you would never have been able to tell unless you put every small hint together that Forgal was an old war vet, that Sieran had such a short but exciting life (I genuinley cried at her death), and of course everyone loves Tybalt and his witty banter which ended in a sad note when he realized he had to make a hard choice.

Their death left genuine impact on the player, you grew to care about them, they benefitted YOU as a person often doing things WITH you, growing WITH you, and developing with you, their life wasnt just meaningless, you had a whole 2 chapters or so with this particular person and thats what gave them meaning.

You had a whole story to tell with them.

Now then…

Example of a Bad Death: Belinda

Belinda, The Master of Peace and The other Master that died too, their deaths were utterly meaningless and forgetful, their characters had no impact, no relevence, no development and no layers to which I could genuinley feel sad that they died.

Belinda’s literal existance was to be a token kill for Mordremoth so Marjory could feel sad, it was forced, it was bad, it was too soon. The same goes for the Masters who both died unnecessarily quickly to the point we just didnt “care” that they died at all.

Theres a lesson to be learned here, a character with no story to tell wont be missed enough to care. You wont really know who that person is, you wont really care, who that person is, and frankly, I think thats the issue with killing minor/secondary characters off without any real point.

You need to actually make that character help the player in some way, involve them with the story, make them grow, make them develop, you need “adventures” together that you can miss them for.

Death has to be relevent when it actually happens, and if some nobody redshirt dies because they can, you wont care.

Example of Meh Deaths: Eir, Faolain, Treesus

These three died a very pointless death, it wasnt necessarily that any of them died for no reason, their reason was there. But it was weak, the story was told in a forced way, for the pure sake of killing a character. Eirs death was not the same as the Mentors because it “could” have honestly been avoided, I think frankly its very out of character for Eir to help Faolain considering that she literally knows in EoD what a backstabbing cow she actually is. Faolains death was even more pointless since her entire purpose for injuring Eir was to run off, and instead she gets injured and killed, so nobody wins, in some ways the “metaphor” is okay, but it doesnt really do enough symbolic impact to the game, Braham shaving his hair was pointless. And as for Treaherne, the entire matyrdom thing was… forced, it was not a good way to kill off a marmite character who was both loved and hated by the playerbase, it was the best way admittingly you could have done it cheaply. But there are better ways to kill someone off.

Going Forwards

Death must be important in any game, it has to be important because you need a good build up to it, Scruffy dying was decent, the Mentors dying was decent, but Belinda and The Master of Peace were nobodies nobody even cared about, and Eir’s Death was just… avoidable.

Its literally about the WAY you portray death that matters, it has to happen in either the most predictable but inescapable build up, or, in a way thats so sudden and horrifying that it leaves you hollow when it finally does.

But it has to happen, most importantly, AFTER you have grown to really care about the character, which can take an ENTIRE Season or even 3-4 seasons to actually achieve.

Example of a potential Death Going Forwards:

Lets say… one of the Biconics finally snuffs the bucket, maybe… Canach?

Now im going to be honest ill be really bloody sad if Canach dies… but there are ways you could do this. He could be a victim of the racial hatred of Sylvari, he could sacrifice himself to save the queen from assassination, he could do alot of heroic things to die to “redeem” himself, as a former criminal. But if he WAS going to die, it’d have to be in a way that actually WORKED.

To be honest, I think Taimi, would be a far more tragic and better character to kill but theres always a stigma towards killing children… however, I think theres a way to make something like that work.

Theres an easy copout option if your really looking for a way to kill someone like Taimi, do it while shes in a mech suit, the suit explodes, we dont see her body, we just know the hollow destruction of the suit and the lack of voice comming from it signals the death of our beloved little inventer.

That, could be genuinley hurtful, and if done by a main antagonist, such as a white mantle leader, or a dragon, that could give us MORE than enough reason to want true angonising revenge upon them. Just as Zhaitans minions killing our Mentor, gave us more than enough reason to go to Orr, and destroy Zhaitan.

Anyone could die, really, but you need to KNOW who they are first, and you need to have some kind of subtle build up, hints you leave like seeds that something is going to happen to THAT character soon maybe something “great” happens and they’re about to make a huge discovery. Maybe they’re about to become the queen of kryta, and suddenly, they get stabbed in the dark without warning.

Or maybe they’re feeling pretty low lately (Braham) and just want to end it already, they’ve given up the fight, given up trying.

That too, is a possibilty.

Either way, Death has to be MEANINGFUL if its going to happen at all.

So remember A-net, you dont have to kill your creations, but if your going to, remember that there is a good time to do it, and a bad time.

I think some of the deaths in GW2 were never ment to hurt or be remembered. The master of peace being a prime example. The only reason he died was so we could later become the bearer of the egg. His death served a narrative purpose other than evoking emotions. The other master died for flavor. His death was only there to show that mordremoth’s minions are not to be underestimated and as an excuse for the other masters to withdraw and cancel their trip to the jungle.

When fighting an elder Dragon it would be strange to only see meaningful characters die. It could suddenly claim anyone, even people we’ve just met. People we never really got to know. It becomes interesting when these deaths indirectly influence us by influencing the NPCs around us. Belinda’s death is such an example. We never got to know her, but she was important to Marjory.

I have to agree though, that Eirs death was meaningless. Not only could it have been avoided easily, Eirs trust to Faolein was just out of character, the player character was just idly watching instead of gliding over and Braham didn’t show any response besides slowing down the group to shave his head. All in all her death left the biggest feeling of “what a scripted kitten” of all GW2 deaths in me. I was more upset about my inability to do anything during the cinematic than anything else.

I found Belinda’s death to serve a purpose. It almost fractures Kasmeer and Jory, which shows that sometimes war will break love. And somethings through hardship, you’ll see just how strong your love is.

That death forced Kasmeer to go on while Jory went back to her family to deal with the death of her sister.

Why not kill off Marjory instead? Destiny’s Edge 2.0 is already over represented with human females. I might not like Canach but he’s male and sylvari so he balances things out somewhat. Taimi would be a terrible character to kill off because she’s too cute and an Asura, same with Zojja.

Killing someone in a same sex relationship is such an overused trope by now though, I’d hate for them to do that.
I think there have been enough deaths for now, I could use the new season without any important ones. Eir’s death made me very sad, as did Treaherne.

I agree with Bunji. Character deaths can serve narrative purposes other than evoking an emotional response from players and it would actually seem strange if the only people we saw killed were close friends of our characters.

Limiting it like that also runs the risk of making it predictable. If they establish a pattern of building up your relationship with a character and then killing them off we’ll be able to see it coming. If anyone can die at any point from the mission where they’re first introduced to several years in when they’re established as a reoccurring character then it’s both more realistic and more unpredictable.

But also I did feel sad when Belinda died. My character and I may not have spent much time with her but we know Marjory very well, and know how much her family means to her. The look on her face and her reaction when she came face to face with her sisters body made me feel terrible. Along the same lines as when my friend came to work and told me her grandad had died. I had never met her grandad but I still felt sad for my friend because she was upset.

Death could be much more meaningful if you as a player felt responsible.
Like a decision you make at some point in the story later turns out to be a bad one and actually gets someone killed you care about instead of just leading to an alternate mission with other enemies.
For example the pact mission were you fire mortars at risen that turn out to be your own troops?
I rarely felt that bad for something.
Just at that point we didnt really have any decision (unless of course doing another mission) and afterwards you really gave your best to take the blame away from us (it was an evil super mesmer that deceived me)
I like to play my characters as perfect. The one you can send everywhere and I will always return alive and successful.
Your story kinda supports that.
But getting punished for bad decisions, killing a friend and being accused of their death…
You cant make a sinister, twisted and interesting story without hurting the protagonist.
And with protagonist I dont mean the player character. I mean the player.
It would be much better for roleplay and a much more impactful and memorable story.
You know why so many people read ice and fire/watch game of thrones.
Because unlike the usual hollywood kitten bad things happen.
With a game you can do the same thing…and make us feel responsible for it.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

I think some of the deaths in GW2 were never ment to hurt or be remembered. The master of peace being a prime example. The only reason he died was so we could later become the bearer of the egg. His death served a narrative purpose other than evoking emotions. The other master died for flavor. His death was only there to show that mordremoth’s minions are not to be underestimated and as an excuse for the other masters to withdraw and cancel their trip to the jungle.

When fighting an elder Dragon it would be strange to only see meaningful characters die. It could suddenly claim anyone, even people we’ve just met. People we never really got to know. It becomes interesting when these deaths indirectly influence us by influencing the NPCs around us. Belinda’s death is such an example. We never got to know her, but she was important to Marjory.

The problem is, the master of sun or what ever it was died before the master of peace already showing that mordremoths minions were a threat, the master of peace runs off with an egg that we “still” dont know the relevence of an entire season after its inception and honestly it just feels like a red herring plot.

His death was pointless as we already “killed” one of the other masters prior to his death which means his only real purpose “was” narrative, but again, that narrative, was bad narrative.

Sometimes you just dont “need” to kill someone, injure, wound, badly screw sure, even corrupt their morals and possibly turn them on the player, or make them outright betray you for a reason later revealed.

But the one thing you “dont” … do… is kill someone, because you “can”.

Otherwise you fall into the GoT/Walking Dead problem of, eventually that guys death was pointless because you never even knew or cared about him.

Belinda if you were a vet of S1 made her first appearence as a minor cameo in S1’s ending, but the issue is… her role was non existant besides it, she was just, a small figurehead that died an episode later after the first.

What “Should” have happened is this:

We should have been with the Master of Peace from day 1, and Belinda too, both of them should have been with us, growing with us, progressing with us, jory at our side, giving jory a major focus throughout the story. This could have let Jory/Belinda have some serious bonding moments, even asking Beli what she thinks of Kasmeer/Jory, and possibly having some Kasmeer/Bel moments to shape it up, this way, you could really see the chars development with her sister and her sisters love interest.

Master of Peace meanwhile could have us help the Masters of Sun/Wind/Lightning and the Zephyites, giving us some exposition on their culture and giving each master some level of char importance.

Ultimatley, this would culminate in maybe some kind of disasterous scenerio, the MoP discovers the hidden location of the egg, goes after it, Beli follows, and when we arrive, Beli and MoP are fighting off Mordrem, “Both” die in the process in a disasterous scenerio we “could” have prevented, but at the time, maybe we were busy (say, protecting the pale tree and forming a pact summit?)

So when we finally arrive its too late, disaster strikes and it hits like a hammer.

This, could have worked “alot” better than just “they die, you dont really care”.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

I think some of the deaths in GW2 were never ment to hurt or be remembered. The master of peace being a prime example. The only reason he died was so we could later become the bearer of the egg. His death served a narrative purpose other than evoking emotions. The other master died for flavor. His death was only there to show that mordremoth’s minions are not to be underestimated and as an excuse for the other masters to withdraw and cancel their trip to the jungle.

When fighting an elder Dragon it would be strange to only see meaningful characters die. It could suddenly claim anyone, even people we’ve just met. People we never really got to know. It becomes interesting when these deaths indirectly influence us by influencing the NPCs around us. Belinda’s death is such an example. We never got to know her, but she was important to Marjory.

I have to agree though, that Eirs death was meaningless. Not only could it have been avoided easily, Eirs trust to Faolein was just out of character, the player character was just idly watching instead of gliding over and Braham didn’t show any response besides slowing down the group to shave his head. All in all her death left the biggest feeling of “what a scripted kitten” of all GW2 deaths in me. I was more upset about my inability to do anything during the cinematic than anything else.

Playing through that as a ranger for the 1st time was hilarious. My pet had been downed during the fight, and afterward while the group is standing around moaning about Eir’s death my pet recovers and my ranger throws out the line “Oh, so you were just playing dead.” She has no tact apparently.