Guild Wars 2

The story in this game:

a) You don’t need it for your legendary.

b) You don’t need it for any skin, since the Pact weapons are tradeable, and tbh the skins themselves aren’t that impressive.

c) Pretty much all of the endgame goals are removed from the story. What I did on a heart on one map, or how I moved the war effort has no bearing on me. Endgame PvE revolves around farming gold for your legendary, fractals, or explorables. You never hear from Destiny’s Edge again, and quite frankjly to hear the Priest of Grenth in explorable Arah p4 say “no one dare stand against Zhaitan” when Zhaitan is already dead by then hurts my soul.

d) I’m actually surprised that the home instance was just abandoned. I get a refugee’s drawing from this living story, and it’s a consumable for karma instead of a drawing you could see appear on your home instance. I thought the entire point of the home instance was to add trophies and keep track of what you accomplished in the game. Yet, it’s barren.

e) Why did you need to create more characters for the living story when there are plenty you have not revisited? For the sylvari, those twins or pretty much the NPC’s/tribes from the racial and order storylines could have been brought back. Your order members could have continued to be a presence.

f) Orders don’t matter. They each had a theory about dragons, such as putting dragons to sleep like the Order of Whispers, yet we never got the question of the dragons answered or explored — Zhaitan died to the same cannon regardless of what order you were.

Why label this game an mmoRPg when the RP part is going to be put in the dustbin? Why not just a mmog if the story is so unimportant/optional?

Why do we have races if we’re not going to explore their cultural distinctions in their storylines, and instead after lv20 we start getting the same story regardless of who you are? Creating a unified front does not mean you have to lose the nuance of your racial and order choices and how they impact your perspective and actions on the world.

About the orders, I’m quite surprised that they didn’t do it like EoTN where you can do favors for each of them and in the process, participate in their story and learn more about them. Possibly also progress your character through an order of choice. Even the kurzick/luxon war in factions were more involved than the three orders in GW2 now.

The “Defeat pure evil and save the world” plot is about as simplistic and forgettable as plots can be. I’d be more interested in the conflicts the orders face amongst themselves and how their different ideologies clash.

Instead of just throwing the personal story away though, I hope they salvage it by making all three orders recognize our hero after we defeat zhaitan, and let the three orders continue to drive the story onward. It even fits the current living story. The order of whispers should likely have both the dredge and the flame legion infiltrated by now and can provide a lot of intel as the vigil continue to escort and take care of refugees. The priory should have started working on a solution to the problem as well.

If players could take part in that capacity, it will allow continuity for all future stories, no matter what kind of story they add. Even if it’s a complete new plot where the main antagonists and everything is entirely done from scratch, players will still not find it confusing because by then, they’ll likely have picked a favorite order and has already familiarized themselves with their usual channels. The stories can be delivered more coherently, without unnecessary not-quite-a-quest-dispenser heralds that nobody cares to click.

Let’s also at least try to create some justification for why Orr is still swarming with undead after it’s supposedly purified. Maybe the process just takes very long, but at least people who have completed the story should be able to visit that sanctum in a separate instance, it could be a hub for people who have completed the story to meet and possible have some ongoing story stuff there.

Regarding “D”, I think that is perhaps one of the biggest letdowns so far unfortunately. Prior to launch I was under the impression that the home instance would serve as a mix between a player house and the hall of monuments from the first GW. I really hope they recognize how important it is to create virtually tangible (lol XD) achievements rather than just giving us achievement points. Instead of getting 3 achievement points for completing the “Lost and Found” achievement in living story, I’d rather have the refugees or their items come chill in the home instance.

I agree with this post, I see my story line as a way for quick xp and gear.

exos.6831:

I agree with this post, I see my story line as a way for quick xp and gear.

Wait for gw3….