Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to say I’m very, very glad to see how the storytelling has improved with this episode. I’ve been criticizing the poor storytelling, together with the lack of lore cohesion, since pretty much release.

This episode has been awesome storywise. The storytelling was pretty good, and what I always wanted and felt that was missing in this game. Congratulations for moving forward and improving it so much.

Deeper analysis:

The story was told very well, there were references to many things, the instanced story had steps in the open world, and the instanced and open world versions showed cohesion between them, dialogues included. I’d give it a 9/10, it was great. Some nitpicks:

The only part where this cohesion failed was when, in the instanced version, there were nearly no zephirites, while in the open world it’s full of them. I think the instanced version should have showed some injured zephyrites, or the same zephyrites as in the open world.

The seraph feel a bit out of place, too. We see none after crossing the portal, and then there’s a few medics who appeared out of nowhere, without any escort, and with the target of their expedition in front of them, and no reaction by them whatsoever. Where’s Corporal Jantzen and his troops? Why isn’t there at least one soldier next to the portal talking with the zephyrites to coordinate the medic camp north?

One of the problems with storytelling has been the lack of named enemies, and this didn’t get enough attention. There’s one named Inquest asura in the instance, that dies seconds after we meet him, but in the open world, who I assume is supposed to be leading them has no name, and is a generic NPC instead. It would have been better if this NPC got a name, and same dialogues tied to the Inquest events showing their motivations. Right now they feel a bit like filler, mostly because they have close to zero personality. The NPCs, and specially villains, need more personality.

There’s many cool objectives across the zone, tied to the personal story. However, some of them should really stay invisible if you’re not doing the mission, else they feel completely out of place, and sometimes spoil what’s to come if you decide to explore the zone before completing the instanced story. I’m talking about the dead merchant and the notes, for example. They don’t really make sense as permanent world additions, they should stay invisible while you’re not (re)playing the living world story.

Finally, I don’t like the zone too much, which doesn’t seem to be tied to lore, but is. The zone is awesome, and I love everything about it, but it is too small. Why the major sites in the zone (Prosperity town, seraph camp and zephyrite wreckage) aren’t separated by a long walk across dunes and cliffs is beyond me, it really kills immersion to see everything so close. It affects gameplay negatively, too, since everything is so squeezed together you arrive anywhere by walking a bit. The feeling of crossing a wasteland is nowhere to be seen with such a small sized zone.

All in all, except the zone-size problem, which has more consequences on gameplay than lore, the game has really stepped forward, into a much more better direction. Great job, really, the story, lore and storytelling this patch were awesome.

The size of the zone feels like they’re making Dry Top a larger map over subsequent releases, but that’s just speculation on my part.

Absolutely agree with OP, the storytelling in Season 2 is MILES ahead of what was presented in Season 1. So kudos to the story telling team.

I have another little nitpick, i didn’t even noticed there was a Scarlet Hologram
in the room until after I had finished the story and actually viewed Points of Interest Episode 2. Interestingly enough, even Kate herself also mentioned she missed it.
Was it too well hidden? Would be better if it was at least mentioned in the dialogue.

Other then that, yea Great New Start to Season 2, looking forward to the next episode.

I See No Tomorrow.7302:

The size of the zone feels like they’re making Dry Top a larger map over subsequent releases, but that’s just speculation on my part.

I don’t care about the future, I care about the present, and it’s no good. If they wanted to have open world progression through patches, they should have released the entire zone, and then add changes over it, instead of locking us up on a corner with no space to breath.

Snowmoon.1758:

Absolutely agree with OP, the storytelling in Season 2 is MILES ahead of what was presented in Season 1. So kudos to the story telling team.

I have another little nitpick, i didn’t even noticed there was a Scarlet Hologram
in the room until after I had finished the story and actually viewed Points of Interest Episode 2. Interestingly enough, even Kate herself also mentioned she missed it.
Was it too well hidden? Would be better if it was at least mentioned in the dialogue.

Other then that, yea Great New Start to Season 2, looking forward to the next episode.

I forgot to add a similar nitpick, too. In the case of the hologram, I always explore everything, so I saw it without problems.

However (and this is not the case for this release) they hide lore way too much. Dialogues should repeat enough for you not to camp them mindlessly waiting to see if anyone says something interesting. They should be accessible, they should reach easily to the players. I repeat, this isn’t the case in this release, if you pay a bit of attention you’ll see everything without problems, including the hologram. But this is a problem present in many other places of the game.

@Snowmoon I don’t think the hologram was well hidden, I think it was well placed, it wasn’t that obvious, but if you waited a bit after you finished talking with Taimi you would see that she move really close to it and there would have a good chance to pop the “interact” in the screen if you tried to talk with Taimi again.

Yes, the story and how the instances was planned was very nice, a good variety of “missions” (defense, investigation, boss battle, so on) overall it was indeed a good improvement from LS1.

By the way, now that I replayed the story, I feel like the transition from “We’re investigating some bandits and vines” to “Zephyrite crash!” is incredibly forced.

You just arrive there, see a crash and you’re like “Oh well, hi what’s up”. Doesn’t help that the zone portal leads you to the middle of it, had they made a bigger map, we could have walked some cliffs before seeing the disaster, and maybe find some injured Zephyrite asking for our help before arriving to the main site.

Yes, I didn’t see the hologram, because I stepped outside the room to listen to the subsequent dialogue. (My poor computer doesn’t like enclosed spaces like Scarlet’s Lair, etc.)

But, I hope to be able to go back and see it, now that I know it’s there. =)

BobbyStein.2315:

Snowmoon.1758:

I have another little nitpick, i didn’t even noticed there was a Scarlet Hologram
in the room until after I had finished the story and actually viewed Points of Interest Episode 2. Interestingly enough, even Kate herself also mentioned she missed it.
Was it too well hidden? Would be better if it was at least mentioned in the dialogue.

Hmm. We added a story step that made interacting with the Ceara/Scarlet hologram required so that people wouldn’t miss it. I’ve seen at least one fan video where that was the case. I’ve also heard of some instances where players weren’t prompted to interact. I’ll follow up on this. It may be a bug.

Snowmoon.1758:

Other then that, yea Great New Start to Season 2, looking forward to the next episode.

Glad you and others enjoyed it.

I’m pretty sure you have to interact with her diary that is hand written which she mentions a new recording device (IIRC) as the item Rox found. Then you complete the talks with everyone and everyone leaves but Tiami wants to say something, you talk to her, then you can leave never having to interact with the recording device. Though it’s not overly hidden and I actually kind of like that it’s not directly pointed to. You’re hinted to look around the room by the 4 of them each finding something cool. There are extra books by the entrance and this recording that aren’t directly pointed to but worth looking for.

Yes, talking to Taimi currently seems to be the final thing the player needs to do, to complete the quest. I initially missed the hologram as well.

BobbyStein.2315:

Hmm. We added a story step that made interacting with the Ceara/Scarlet hologram required so that people wouldn’t miss it.

Actually, i find it a little bit sad that you did. :/

I was excited like a little kid when I found the device although nothing pointed to it beside a short remark by Taimi. I very much liked the fact that there was “bonus content” to discover (and I count the “coffin blueprints” as such, too) if you kept your eyes and ears open, instead of just clicking the UI in brain-afk mode to skip forward.

To me, the game has always been at it’s best when exploration was rewarded with interesting and non-obvious findings. Please keep adding such hidden treasures, don’t destroy them. Personally, I don’t want to play a game where the 100% complete step-by-step walk-through is intrusively integrated in the UI so that I will never ever miss a thing. If so, where are my choices, why playing at all, why not watch a movie instead?

~MRA

I did not notice the hologram either and i did not get the “story step”.
it was rather late for me, so i rushed maybe a bit, but luckily i was able to read up on it later.

Overall the writing and the inclusion of past deeds as well as the recognission of your character in class and race is really great.

I have only one major gripe and it is more a personal thing since i am a bit iffy on the biconics in general, so i thought it was rather weird to suddenly jump to “leader” status.
However that is somethign different: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/I-am-the-Boss-Part-II/first#post4181770

BobbyStein.2315:

Snowmoon.1758:

I have another little nitpick, i didn’t even noticed there was a Scarlet Hologram
in the room until after I had finished the story and actually viewed Points of Interest Episode 2. Interestingly enough, even Kate herself also mentioned she missed it.
Was it too well hidden? Would be better if it was at least mentioned in the dialogue.

Hmm. We added a story step that made interacting with the Ceara/Scarlet hologram required so that people wouldn’t miss it. I’ve seen at least one fan video where that was the case. I’ve also heard of some instances where players weren’t prompted to interact. I’ll follow up on this. It may be a bug.
.

On my first time doing that instance I started to hear Taimi’s interacting/noticing it(some sort of exclamation like “ah ha!”) after all the other NPCs have left but that was right as I was clicking the exit instance button because it seems like there was nothing else to do in the instance. In my second run with a friend I heard the whole thing but I don’t know how he triggered it.

Khisanth.2948:

BobbyStein.2315:

Snowmoon.1758:

I have another little nitpick, i didn’t even noticed there was a Scarlet Hologram
in the room until after I had finished the story and actually viewed Points of Interest Episode 2. Interestingly enough, even Kate herself also mentioned she missed it.
Was it too well hidden? Would be better if it was at least mentioned in the dialogue.

Hmm. We added a story step that made interacting with the Ceara/Scarlet hologram required so that people wouldn’t miss it. I’ve seen at least one fan video where that was the case. I’ve also heard of some instances where players weren’t prompted to interact. I’ll follow up on this. It may be a bug.
.

On my first time doing that instance I started to hear Taimi’s interacting/noticing it(some sort of exclamation like “ah ha!”) after all the other NPCs have left but that was right as I was clicking the exit instance button because it seems like there was nothing else to do in the instance. In my second run with a friend I heard the whole thing but I don’t know how he triggered it.

It’s just interacting with the little blue circle hologram thing right by where the steam minotaur is. There are also some cool books by the front door. it’s very much worthwhile to explore the area for everything you can find.

I didn’t get the story step to interact with the hologram, and i would’ve never known about it until i saw people mentioning it on these forums. I actually saw it when i completed that step on another character.

Dry Top in GW1 was very small, if not the smallest zone. Possible they tied the size to GW1? Just something to mull over.

Re: Hologram, that was so minor and just flavor, I enjoyed that it was “hidden”. I mean it was WAAAAY WAAAAY less hidden than just randomly adding in something like a house or NPC and expecting everyone to find it. The hologram was in plain, clickable sight.

Now if only they made the dialogue skippable for the next episode (or patch it in for this one). Having to redo content to get some achievements, or if you have more than one character is tedious enough. Having to wait for the bore-conics to stop their incessant yammering has made me hate them and despise the writers. I’m sure that wasn’t the intent…