Guild Wars 2

Regarding the OP and following posts: Hear, Hear!!!

I would like to say “no offense” to the Anet writers, but that would be disingenuous: I wish Shriketalon was lead writer for this game.

I like reading Shriketalon’s posts, and he does think a lot about this when he does his analysis posts. But I don’t think that necessarily translates into being a good choice for a writer for the game.

If I had to wish anyone else into the position, and it was guaranteed they’d be available, I have several other names I would put into the process. And I’d probably start with Tad Williams or Timothy Zahn. Barring that, maybe Matthew Corey, Phil and Kaja Foglio, Aaron Williams, or Chuck Sonnenberg.

I agree with the OP.

This is why the early parts of the Personal Story was working pretty well (even if the plots weren’t that good), because all the characters were rotating in and out of the story, until Trahearne comes in. The focus shifted to him, and we’ve always been sidelined after that.

The early Living Story characters were alright too. We had Ellen Kiel, Evon Gnashblade, Lord Faren, Kasmeer, etc., but then we started getting the DE 2.0 cast, and it’s all been downhill since then.

It’s as if they didn’t learn from the mistake of Trahearne.

Which mistake? The one of him being blamed for stealing all the credit? (which never happens)

Or how instead of the player being made leader of the Pact, they put in a neutral character who was respected by the orders and thus a far better choice then somebody who shot up the ranks of the orders and frankly, doesn’t have much history with the three orders to have all thre truly trust the idea of them being in charge?

Or was it something else :P.

Honestly, reading the OP, I kinda agree but at the same time kinda don’t agree. While a rotating cast would be neat, I think the bits would HAVE to tie together, or else we’d get the feeling of jumping between storylines and possibly raising more questions then answers.

“Wait, we were investigating that thing in Kryta with the order of whispers, why are we suddenly helping a vigil group clear a newly explored region of Orr?” Also the possibility with order specific groups feeling out of place. “I’m a priory member… why am I taking orders from the order of whispers leader?” or “I’m in the order of whispers… why am I bossing around vigil troops?” (Speaking from a viewpoint of these are order members, and not part of the vigil/priory/OoW who make up the Pact). Admittedly, maybe I’m mistaking his wording to mean as bunch of disconnected plots that don’t tie together much at all, vs a larger plot with several aspects, in which different groups of characters explore.

BUT, as said, I agree possibly having more characters coming in and out would be nice, ESPECIALLY if they acknowledge PS feats or interactings. One thing that bugged me in season 1 LS was how Lord Faren seemed clueless as to who my human Necromancer noble was, or as if they hadn’t done anything together.

If say, Lord Faren appeared with some watchknights to help secure an area (Idummo, random combo I made), I’d hope he looks at my noble and is all like “Man! it’s been a long time since that party got trashed no?”

nexxe.7081:

The early Living Story characters were alright too. We had Ellen Kiel, Evon Gnashblade, Lord Faren, Kasmeer, etc., but then we started getting the DE 2.0 cast, and it’s all been downhill since then.

It’s as if they didn’t learn from the mistake of Trahearne.

You listed Kasmeer in there but she is part of the biconics cast you mentioned. Also, Lord Faren is from the personal story (Human, Noble). I would say the story “went downhill” when they had to introduce Scarlet and fumbled it. Then they did it again with Belinda’s introduction (“Hi, you can call me Red Shirt”) right after they picked up the ball from Scarlet and managed to make it work.

Trahearne isn’t a mistake, and how he came into the plot isn’t a mistake, but a symptom.

The Personal Story plot moved too fast from chapter to chapter, and bounced through so much so fast there wasn’t much attention paid to building characters so much as putting them where they needed to be.

With the exception of early Personal Story chapters, which was better about it since it was introducing the world and fleshing it out. This was okay to start with, but they just kept it up and things came and went quickly without having time to mature or settle in.

You could have had Benn Tenstrikes, Sergeant Bigsby, the Gear Warband, or any other characters make interesting threads which could turn up. Heck, Demmi Beetlestone was a plot thread which had nowhere it went and it could have gone places. But due to the pacing, we didn’t get any chance to really deal with any of these things beyond “hi, help us out, okay bye”.

That, in my estimation, is where the biggest flaw is in both the Personal Story, and the Living Story – it’s rushing, way too fast, trying to develop something artificially (forcing us into a position) instead of naturally (making us care about being in the position). As much flak as people want to give Nightfall just for Kormir’s involvement – by the end, the companion heroes actually felt (for the most part Norgu and Goren) like we’d been on a journey and bonded . . . not just been pushed in there and “here you go”.

[1/2]

Kalavier.1097:

Which mistake? The one of him being blamed for stealing all the credit? (which never happens)

Or how instead of the player being made leader of the Pact, they put in a neutral character who was respected by the orders and thus a far better choice then somebody who shot up the ranks of the orders and frankly, doesn’t have much history with the three orders to have all thre truly trust the idea of them being in charge?

I’m not talking about him receiving the glory, or credit, or whatever. I’m talking about the attention and focus. Just about every story step included Trahearne and his story. The scholar, the leader, the wyld hunt, his story with the Pale Tree, the Orders, etc. Yes, we ultimately made the choices, but the story didn’t focus on our characters, except to acknowledge that we were there. It didn’t talk about our personal choices that we chose during character creation (i’m talking about after Trahearne shows up in the story). It didn’t inquire about our past, family, friends, past adventures, etc. Anyway, Trahearne’s story has been done to death, and there’s been lengthy posts on that topic of the pros and cons.

The same mistakes are happening again. The focus isn’t on our story. There’s so much potential to explore. They could have expanded on our story, by offering more personal choices during the Season 2 chapters. Now, some would say, that it would be hard to do, since there’s multiple combinations of choices at character creation, but they could have coalesced them into a main theme, and then build from that.

This happened with the biconics to a lesser degree because they were rushing it – only Rox and Braham’s connection to my character feels “real” due to how they were there in Cragstead and the Hatchery. We fought with those two, and we got to know them more than we did the later additions.

We had more to rely on with Canach than Taimi . . . why didn’t we have them go another cliche route and have Canach offer to work his imprisonment off – you could have had him show up in the Tower of Nightmares inspecting the spores since we know he worked with that sort of thing before, and come up with a counter-agent instead of Marjory. We could have had him decide Scarlet Briar is too close to home (an example of what he almost could have become on Southsun) and throw himself all-in to stop her by working more botanical miracles to create counters to her forces. Then he could have made filters capable of making the miasma useless rather than “oh no, it’s been adapted to the antitoxin”. Finish it off with in the final confrontation with Scarlet, lambasting her for putting her faith in creations of metal instead of remembering some things can grow stronger than others can be built.

We could have had Marjory and Kasmeer have the second LS season devoted to showing why these two are important to us, choose a different dragon to focus on rather than Mordremoth (who still came out of freaking nowhere) . . . why not Kralkatorrik? After all, you could sell it as starting with a talk about extending the ceasefire and the treaty meant to give some of Ascalon to human settlers and work the Branded in while Marjory and Kasmeer are investigating strange occurrences like we’ve seen them do. Then it turns out Kralk is active again, and we retake the Crystal Desert (utilizing many of the same mechanics we have in Dry Top, like sandstorms!) league by league trying to get there. We learn about Belinda and Marjory, Kasmeer and her family, why the two families don’t look like they would get along, and let them hoist the spotlight for the first half.

And we have Destiny’s Edge fretting about whether they have what it takes to assist again and finally deciding to assist at the mid-season break by dropping in to explain everything they know about Kralk from the last time. This lets us call in the Pact and our friends from last time, and . . . and this is important . . .

We have the climax build because our character called for aid and it came. Can’t get any closer to “this is my story” than that.

I think one thing they could do in PS and LS is more named npcs.

What I mean is, sometimes the missions felt more real when we weren’t escorting “Nameless mook 1, 2, 3 and 5.” but instead were escorting “Scholar mary, warmaster Bjorn, lightbringer brightpaw.” etc.

Sure, half of those guys didn’t have much of a story developed or character, but I always felt it was better then “Vigil warmaster,” <_<.

edit: Actually,, I think they goofed with Belinda’s involvement in episode 1. I think it’d been somewhat more interesting if instead we had Belinda (AND THE SQUAD) come through to drytop with us, fighting alongside us as we tried to figure out what was going on. (Some nameless elements of the Seraph can stick behind to man the camp and all or something) Then at end of episode 1 (or maybe beginning of two), we have the vine attack and Belinda is sent back to Fort salma to warn them or get reinforcements.

I feel it seems out of place to have the Seraph group in the first episode waiting to get through the pass, then in the story instances… they never, EVER show up. As if the vines got cleared and we marched through with them roasting hot-dogs at the campfire. Sure, we have the Seraph medics, but there isn’t a named person among them, nor any other Seraph around.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

nexxe.7081:

The early Living Story characters were alright too. We had Ellen Kiel, Evon Gnashblade, Lord Faren, Kasmeer, etc., but then we started getting the DE 2.0 cast, and it’s all been downhill since then.

It’s as if they didn’t learn from the mistake of Trahearne.

You listed Kasmeer in there but she is part of the biconics cast you mentioned. Also, Lord Faren is from the personal story (Human, Noble). I would say the story “went downhill” when they had to introduce Scarlet and fumbled it. Then they did it again with Belinda’s introduction (“Hi, you can call me Red Shirt”) right after they picked up the ball from Scarlet and managed to make it work.

Trahearne isn’t a mistake, and how he came into the plot isn’t a mistake, but a symptom.

The Personal Story plot moved too fast from chapter to chapter, and bounced through so much so fast there wasn’t much attention paid to building characters so much as putting them where they needed to be.

With the exception of early Personal Story chapters, which was better about it since it was introducing the world and fleshing it out. This was okay to start with, but they just kept it up and things came and went quickly without having time to mature or settle in.

You could have had Benn Tenstrikes, Sergeant Bigsby, the Gear Warband, or any other characters make interesting threads which could turn up. Heck, Demmi Beetlestone was a plot thread which had nowhere it went and it could have gone places. But due to the pacing, we didn’t get any chance to really deal with any of these things beyond “hi, help us out, okay bye”.

That, in my estimation, is where the biggest flaw is in both the Personal Story, and the Living Story – it’s rushing, way too fast, trying to develop something artificially (forcing us into a position) instead of naturally (making us care about being in the position). As much flak as people want to give Nightfall just for Kormir’s involvement – by the end, the companion heroes actually felt (for the most part Norgu and Goren) like we’d been on a journey and bonded . . . not just been pushed in there and “here you go”.

[1/2]

Yes, Kasmeer was fine at first. She wasn’t much of an important character. They could’ve kept her away, and only brought her into the story when needed, just like Faren, or Canach. The problem starts when she’s in every single story episode, along with the other DE 2.0. Even when they’re not there, they are still acknowledged as being somewhere else.

Agreed about the pacing of Personal Story. It was going fast, without any real character development, but imagine, if any of those characters showed up periodically throughout season 1. Imagine seeing the warband, from the personal story, fighting against Modremoth minions in Iron Marches, in this last episode. That would be a great nostalgic moment. It was great seeing Imperator and Rytlock again too. Imagine seeing Quinn again from the human story, involved in a major plotline. This is why people were glad when they saw Riot Alice in Dry Top, because they remembered her story plot from personal story. They never used her though, and she gets a brief dialogue section.

This is why DE 1.0 wasn’t really a problem, because they weren’t as involved in your personal story, except for dungeons. They could’ve kept introducing them periodically though, throughout the personal story, but i realize it was costly and there were conflicts with scheduling the voice actors.

Character development doesn’t need characters in every episode. Ellen Kiel and Evon Gnashblade are good examples of this. They had some great moments during Season 1.

Hell, I found myself going “YAY” when playing PS on my Sylvari (who did the order of whispers joining missions) and Asura (who had the golem invention storyline). Why? Because they encountered the one Asura announcer with the holograms, who I FIRST encountered (as a player) in Orr during the naval storyline.

Some characters appeared often, others I think got shoved in places to have a named person with backstory. Like the first person human characters talk to (with the Coyote pet), never ONCE appears in the world or early PS, but appears in an Orr set of missions. The lost sister? Never appears in home instance or anything (Much dislike at that, given how many other PS npcs hang out in your home instance, WHY NOT THE SISTER!), but she appears in an Orr PS mission.

I voiced my opinion on them before, mostly on the fact that they are “not usefull” to the plot in general and “that there are more suited people” in the world.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/The-B-Iconics

To summerize:
- They are allright on their own (Background, developement, etc.)
- Aside from Majory they do nothing to advance the plot (in a meaningful way) after their introdcution.
- There are several people in the world who should have been able to do what they have done and better (by focusing on the “weak, streetlevel” B-Iconics as the ones who drive the plot, the rest of the world feels stupid, slow and unresponsive)

In LS2 we have other problems, however these are mostly due to the fact that the writers are now in overdrive, jumping from epic plotpoint to epic plotpoint (but that is another topic).

However, in their effort to make the B-Iconics more “usefull”, they are actually downgrading the Player Character.
While it was fine for Episode 1, as soon as we knew of the eldar dragon (for some reason acompanies with it`s name) the focus should have shifted.
At this point the B-Iconics should have taken over the adventuring part, following Scarlet, however we are forced to go with them to do stuff.
While we are “supposedly” order them to do certain things, the feeling they invoke is “come follow us, play with us, joke with us”.
It is not complementing the story.
While the whole context of E3 is hard to swallow (jumping ahead in plotpoints again), the whole B-Iconic involvement is just “fanservice” and could easily be written out, because our Character at this point has enough conenctions to get the “unnessary escalated” Tyrian Alliance going.
- The council should not even care about Taimi, since she is a troublemaker, student of Zoija and a desciptive a pain in the kitten (to them). It makes no sense that she gets and audition
- Braham has Motherissues, which were not even played out in a good way. Also not needed, since you could have asked Eir personaly.
- Pale Tree,… You are bets buds with trahearn.. why did Kasmeer have to do that?
- Speaking of Kasmeer… why did she have to get the Queen? We could have asked Logan or even Anise directly (thanks to the Scarlet incident and even more if you are a human)
- Rox.. she is scared of Rythlock, etc… she is also in no good position.

The whole ordeal of E3, aside from running around being an errand boy and do some kill 10 wolves stuff, while doing some annoying tasks for the leaders, was to further the B-iconics and only to a small degree the plot.

We spend more time “playing” with the B-iconics, then with the actual plot in my opinion.
The funny thing is, I only just realised that. But then again, E1 was pretty powerful and E2 had this nice 2001 Ending… with them joking about my near death experience…

Don`t get me wrong. I like them… but I wish they would fade into the background.
The line the pale tree said however is not very encouraging:
Yes, so it is said. I suspect you will do even greater deeds with them.

I don`t wanna…

Anyway. My personal opionion aside. As long as they do not become better embeded in the overall storyline, then it is really hard to keep caring about them, since there are soo many suited characters out there that could do their job and even better…

Last season, I suggested to the devs that they should get rid of DE 2.0. At that time, they had a year and a half to develop the characters and make them believable. I even provided links to Writers Digest articles and books that could help the writing team’s work sparkle. It seems that they have ignored my suggestions.

There are lot of players who don’t care about these characters. In reality, the only characters the gamers care about are their own PCs.

I agree that DE 2.0 has gone the way of DE 1.0. Calling them a Scooby rip-off is a really accurate analogy. As I’ve said in couple recent posts, the writers are writing about characters that they have no interest in. When a writer is not creating what they love, the characters become one-dimensional and the story falls flat.

Job-O-Tron was a side character that I cared about. I learned about his story really late in the game, but I still love the little golem anyways. I hope we see him again.

Kalavier.1097:

Hell, I found myself going “YAY” when playing PS on my Sylvari (who did the order of whispers joining missions) and Asura (who had the golem invention storyline). Why? Because they encountered the one Asura announcer with the holograms, who I FIRST encountered (as a player) in Orr during the naval storyline.

Some characters appeared often, others I think got shoved in places to have a named person with backstory. Like the first person human characters talk to (with the Coyote pet), never ONCE appears in the world or early PS, but appears in an Orr set of missions. The lost sister? Never appears in home instance or anything (Much dislike at that, given how many other PS npcs hang out in your home instance, WHY NOT THE SISTER!), but she appears in an Orr PS mission.

Elli is the best character development I’ve spotted in GW2 writting so far, and that made me happy. How you meet her starting out in Rata Sum, then testing out things in Gendarran, only to wind up reeled in by the Order of Whispers and falling for an NPC you met previously as well. That’s the things they should do for main characters. Not the whole… “You met her once in a bikini at the beach, have her as a permanent party member.”

As far as I can tell, it seems more characters are going to be involved in the story soon: the leaders of each race, and Trehearne(?). It’s going to be GREAT not being stuck with the 4 biconics all the time. I hope the leaders become as involved with you as the biconics have. I want to go on missions with them and get to know them better, even that grumpy old asura. (edit: oh yeah, D.1 also seem to be coming back little by little. I’m glad!)

Destiny’s 3.0?
I want to work with all Destinys together, d1, d2, and d3, all in epic mission/finale.

Djinn.9245:

Regarding the OP and following posts: Hear, Hear!!!

I would like to say “no offense” to the Anet writers, but that would be disingenuous: I wish Shriketalon was lead writer for this game.

While I appreciate the sentiment, I assure you that this would be utter disaster.

It is far easier in this world in which we live to destroy, than to create. To craft a fine work of art takes great time and effort, meticulous care and devotion, yet it is easily torn asunder for its faults by the barbs and criticisms of the audience. But the ability to critique and analyze a work does not necessarily translate into a mastery of the art itself. I assure you that my work would prove highly flawed, full of my own obsessions with pet characters and unwarrented attention to certain aspects of the lore at the expense of others. That, and about four months devoted to a Fancy Feline Festival’s finalsts being catnapped.

The shrike is a swift flier and cunning hunter who impales its prey upon the thorns of its lair. But just because it slays a songbird does not mean it can make music of its own.

But thank you nonetheless.

kta.6502:

I agree that DE 2.0 has gone the way of DE 1.0. Calling them a Scooby rip-off is a really accurate analogy. As I’ve said in couple recent posts, the writers are writing about characters that they have no interest in. When a writer is not creating what they love, the characters become one-dimensional and the story falls flat.

Hmm. Perhaps it is just the opposite.

I full agree with you in regards to the characters being a problem, but sometimes I wonder if a few of the flaws of the Living Story come from loving particular characters too much, rather than not at all.

For instance, the Arenanet writers loved Scarlet Briar. Obsessively. They loved her attitude, her army, her intelligence, her machinations, her steampunk theme, and her backstory. And that’s where we got the entire Scarlet problem in the first place: they always let her win. There’s a good Pixar storytelling quote that says that people admire a character for their efforts, not their success. We see struggle as a valiant effort, regardless of the outcome, and Scarlet never struggled at all. When she needed an army, humanity randomly invented the watchknights. When she wanted minions, random xenophobic factions fell all over themselves to kneel before her. When she had to have krait, suddenly she had obelisks. And when she attacked LA, suddenly the council didn’t think she was threatening enough to prepare a defense. She was spoon-fed victory because the authors were so enamored with her that she just had to succeed. And without putting in any effort, her victories rang hollow and forced.

And now we have a favorite cast who are randomly getting VIP status with higher ups, complete mastery of complex exposition, the only character development in the world, and one of them’s apparently getting super powers. I don’t think this is indifference. It sounds more like a bad case of infatuation.

Of course, you’re quite right about aspects of the game being completely ignored because they are unloved. We can see lots of different avenues of the gameplay that receive virtually no interest at all, sitting in the background or advancing at a glacial rate while the favored plots and characters leap ahead. Rather depressing.

Kalavier.1097:

Honestly, reading the OP, I kinda agree but at the same time kinda don’t agree. While a rotating cast would be neat, I think the bits would HAVE to tie together, or else we’d get the feeling of jumping between storylines and possibly raising more questions then answers.

Ahh, let me clarify that.

You are absolutely correct, there would need to be elements that tie the plot together, characters that don’t simply vanish, and motivations and story hooks to bring the character to a given tale without simply being “you’re bored, something’s happening, check it out.”

The best way to handle it would be to subdivide the rotating cast into two groups. Certain pillars of the community like Countess Anise and Commander Samuelsson appear whenever stories involve a particular location (Divinty’s Reach and Ebonhawk, respectively). Meanwhile, certain characters tend to roam around and show up when appropriate, such as Dougal Keane, Crusader Hiroki, Agent Batenga, Sayeh al’Rajihd, etc. These characters can be recurring, much like Job-o-Tron, so in the years to come each one gets enough development to have an arc of their own dotted throughout the game. The pillars ground the story in the context of the larger world, and the wanderers help bring it to life by binding the elements together.

I can go into more detail in a further post, ’tis late and the character limit chafes.

Shriketalon.1937:

For instance, the Arenanet writers loved Scarlet Briar. Obsessively. They loved her attitude, her army, her intelligence, her machinations, her steampunk theme, and her backstory. And that’s where we got the entire Scarlet problem in the first place: they always let her win. There’s a good Pixar storytelling quote that says that people admire a character for their efforts, not their success. We see struggle as a valiant effort, regardless of the outcome, and Scarlet never struggled at all.

You’re right about people admiring characters for their efforts. What you said about Scarlet is true as well.

Don’t forget that the Scooby gang doesn’t struggle when they are looking for clues. Oftentimes, they only find the bad guys through dumb luck. Shaggy’s & Scooby’s attempts to run away from the scary monsters often cause them to bump into the real bad guys. The biconics are the same way. That’s why I agreed with the OP’s analogy.

Kalavier.1097:

Hell, I found myself going “YAY” when playing PS on my Sylvari (who did the order of whispers joining missions) and Asura (who had the golem invention storyline). Why? Because they encountered the one Asura announcer with the holograms, who I FIRST encountered (as a player) in Orr during the naval storyline.

Some characters appeared often, others I think got shoved in places to have a named person with backstory. Like the first person human characters talk to (with the Coyote pet), never ONCE appears in the world or early PS, but appears in an Orr set of missions. The lost sister? Never appears in home instance or anything (Much dislike at that, given how many other PS npcs hang out in your home instance, WHY NOT THE SISTER!), but she appears in an Orr PS mission.

I noticed that the sister’s model changes a few times. Maybe you just don’t recognize her!

I love that various characters showed up in my personal home (incidentally, I only recently realized I HAD a personal home-area.) Not so impressed that so few of them speak. I had no clue that one specific Sylvari related to my original choices – but that would be nice, if they spoke…

I think what the OP is pointing out could be described as a lack of an operational theme in the writing of Guild Wars. It bothered me in the personal story, and in LS season 1. The Guild Wars storyline has never asked a more important question of its setting and characters than, “How do you kill a dragon?” with the sole exception of Job-o-Tron, imo.

The OP is exactly right when he points out that the Biconics do not embody their nations, or any of the dramatic, contextual struggles those nations go through, and that is a shortcoming of the writing. They embody their plots. They are interesting characters with nice dramatic arcs, but they are just a handful of interesting characters, when the world houses so many more. Their dialogue and action seems rarely, if ever, influenced by the state of affairs in Tyria and only their state of affairs with each other. They grow more individually interesting as time progresses, but their story does not tie into the dramatic questions that Tyria as a whole poses. In fact, nothing really does.

The dragons’ ability to corrupt things, for instance, presents the question of “how do you confront the familiar when it has become strange and dangerous?” Yet we never see a character we care for turned into a dragon minion.

Wars is in the name of this game, but it seems to refuse to ask any interesting questions about war in general, or to only do it in the most cursory way. “At what cost does one fight a war?” So, far, the cost has been our mentor for two series of missions and a Biconic’s little sister who we met literally two weeks ago.

Tyria’s vast, complex, and interesting history is mined for plenty of exposition, but we never get any strong reactions from our cast on how they really feel about living in a world like that, where the past holds the secrets to preserving the present.

Heck, if you want to get right down to it, this is game about adventuring, but none of the stories even present the simple question of whether or not adventuring is good or bad, or easy or hard.

The writing of the stories in Guild Wars pays lipservice to the world’s larger ideas, and skirts the edge of true conflict in favor of broad strokes stuff. Maybe that’s a demand of the format, but particularly through something like the Living Story, I feel they can do better. They call it a season, and I think some of the important considerations of writing a successful season of television should be considered.

stobie.2134:

I noticed that the sister’s model changes a few times. Maybe you just don’t recognize her!

Actually, false. If you did the lost sister storyline (which involves describing your ancestors and thus that generates a look for your sister, based on Elonian, Canthan, Ascalonian, or Krytan.), should you do the set of Orr PS missions that include her, she uses that model.

HOWEVER, if you did not do that storyline at the early levels (aka, any other race or the other two regrets), her model is randomized between the four options, meaning one player might get a Canthan Deborah, another an Ascalonian.

No, I got 2 different models in 2 different scenes, on characters that didn’t do that storyline (and weren’t human themselves)

If you do that sister storyline, I assume the model is consistent. I’m speaking about meeting her on characters that didn’t do it.

Yeah, I can confirm this. The sister’s model randomizes sometimes if your character is not part of her chosen storyline.
She shows up as an Ascalonian first, then as a Krytan for the next mission (Where what’s-his-face dies.), did Orr a week back and commented it with my partner. Was fairly amusing, I guess she discovered Makeover Kits.

It took me awhile to accept it was the same person. (I’ve done this a lot.) I thought they’d broken a writing ‘rule’ by using the same name too often. She’s the one that gets the dog. I assume you get extra dialogue if she’s your sister?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

We could have had Marjory and Kasmeer have the second LS season devoted to showing why these two are important to us.

Why? Why should any characters need to be portrayed to be important to us, simply to be important to us? That’s what’s causing these characters to drag down the story – their story and the story being told are two different things. The most logical people in Tyria to be dealing with each of the conflicts over the last two years are rarely the biconics.

If the Living Story ever visits Divinity’s Reach and investigates Ministry Corruption, the dark forces working behind the scenes in the city, magic for hire like Kraig the Bleak (the necromancer Marjory ran into when investigating Mendel’s death) then Marjory is a great character to tell that story. That’s her story, it wouldn’t make sense to use Braham or Eir or Trahearne – Marjory has a role in Tyria with a solid story to be told there. When it comes to finding a cure for a poison created by someone who learned about poisons from the hylek outside of Rata Sum, why would the story focus on Marjory instead of the hylek? The answer is because she’s a biconic, but that should be the wrong answer. I would like to see a Marjory/Kraig the Bleak story, I don’t want to see a Marjory/Kralkatorrik story.

It would be a disaster to see Marjory and Kasmeer be the focus of a Kralkatorrik dragon campaign. Kralkatorrik has primarily impacted on the charr, Ebonhawk, arguably Ascalonian ancestors, ogres and maybe any races left in Elona. Kralkatorrik is not Marjory and Kasmeer’s fight, that would be like telling the events of Nightfall with Nikka and Cynn instead of Koss and Melonni. Currently we have an Elder Dragon that has only been shown to corrupt sylvari and guess which race is the only one not represented by the biconics? We are missing out on story opportunities because we are restricted to these fives characters.

It’s silly seeing people insist we need several season long arcs dedicated to certain characters for us to care about them. Tybalt was around for a handful of personal story instances and is frequently cited as one of the best GW2 characters. Oberyn was introduced in a later season of GoT and in a handful of scenes the audience was heavily invested in him.

Tyria is so much more complex than five recurring characters. Dumbing down the entire world so that all the important events revolve around the same five recurring characters is hurting the story more than it’s helping.

Shiren.9532:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

We could have had Marjory and Kasmeer have the second LS season devoted to showing why these two are important to us.

Why? Why should any characters need to be portrayed to be important to us, simply to be important to us? That’s what’s causing these characters to drag down the story – their story and the story being told are two different things.

But they could be, and could have been. That’s rather my point. They could have been much, much better handled to give them a richer feel to them.

It’s silly seeing people insist we need several season long arcs dedicated to certain characters for us to care about them.

Who said anything about the arcs being dedicated to the characters? I certainly didn’t – I said they could use the time to let us get to know them and get used to them instead of “here’s your new buddies, play nice now”.

Tybalt was around for a handful of personal story instances and is frequently cited as one of the best GW2 characters. Oberyn was introduced in a later season of GoT and in a handful of scenes the audience was heavily invested in him.

Tybalt, I don’t understand at all since he was goofy and ill-suited to be anywhere near our mentor . . . er, as applemongers. Seriously, we had two really unsuitable mentors and one who actually took the mentoring and us seriously – Forgal. Tybalt and Sieran are just incredibly badly suited and they’re forced on us, and it’s silly to say we should feel something for them, but not for Belinda, when they were barely more to the story than she was.

The only reason people feel for Tybalt or Sieran, or even Belinda is because the story tells us we should. Similarly, Oberyn in the books we were meant to root for despite there not being much to see of him to care about . . . the show, however, I give major applause to the actor. That gentleman alone is why people cared about that character, much like how Maise Williams is why people really like Arya. (I’ll still take the subtle bits of Sophie Turner’s Sansa . . . couldn’t stand her in the books, in the show? Kinda want to give her a hug.)

Tyria is so much more complex than five recurring characters. Dumbing down the entire world so that all the important events revolve around the same five recurring characters is hurting the story more than it’s helping.

And dumbing it down so it revolves around one instance of ten million wouldn’t?

I don’t usually write on the forums, but I found myself agreeing quite strongly with a lot of what has been said in this thread in criticism of the prominence of the “biconics”.

They are decent characters in and of themselves, but they aren’t exactly the stuff of legend and it feels a bit like the writers are simply forcing them into every episode even if it has to be in unconvincing ways, as if the story couldn’t go on without them. This sort of thing can strain credulity at times and actively turns me off of playing the LS when I notice it, though the LS has otherwise improved immensely in season two.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t be part of the story (even little side bits like the relationship between Eir and Braham which has nothing to do with Tyria but is nice all the same) but I’d rather they were woven into the fabric of the grander plot instead of being attached to the main thread every single time as my “special group of friends who solve everything”. If they were used more sparingly I could even see myself being happy to run into them when our paths cross. Apart from being more believable, it would also give some space for other characters to contribute (perhaps characters who are more deeply associated with the world of Tyria: orders, faction groups, shining blade, etc etc..)

For example, rather than having Taimi, a mere apprentice, being solely responsible for maintaining the entire waypoint network, why not have a small specialist team from one of the Colleges? Maybe Taimi could still be there out of academic interest, shown as keen to learn from experts (could even let her impress the pros at some point if you really want her to be special). By having a team from one of the colleges, you could then showcase the lore of that college, how they work, how they feel about the other colleges, and so on. Also an opportunity for a couple of special dialogue options if your character is an asura, but the main thing is making it a “Tyrian” story, not a “biconics” story.

I generally agree with a lot of your points, and this, like the others is at the very least an entertaining read.

However

I don’t think to problem is with the biconics themselves, or their role in the story, it’s with the pacing. This could partially be explained by player reaction to LS1, which was paced so slowly that there was no relevant narrative, but it’s as if we’ve swung the other direction, with so much information happenning each release that the biconics seem artificially important not because of their position in the world or their abilities, but because they make such huge leaps in such short amounts of time.

LS201 was masterfully paced. We met someone, we did a mission which showed a curious disruption in “business as usual” and got some dialogue roughly relating to the story. Then we set off on a complete arc against a minor villain that advancesd a single primary plot thread while hinting at a second, more far-off thread. In mechanics we got a new zone with new events as the bulk of the content.

LS202 went nuts with the pacing, accelerating the plot forward four beats extremely rapidly. Prosperity was destroyed, AND we found the leyline hub (instantly), AND we opened Omadd’s machine. Those are three significant events that could have been their own episodes and been quite fun, whilst building on the new open world content and giving the biconics and our B-roll characters like the residents of prosperity, and the zephyrites, and our new centaur friends time to develop a little. In stead we had to simply accept that taimi located the hub, figured out its defenses, and during that time prosperity was decimated and contact was made with an indigenous population without incident. Then we go off to do two missions with the exact same premise and plot utility, to illustrate that mordremoth’s destroying stuff, of the two, the fort salma mission was the only necessary one for the narrative, while the other mission was pure filler with zero plot utility. Thus, prosperity felt shallow, the zephyrites fell off the story without ceremony, and the centaurs were… well they’re just there as if we’ve been used to them for years.

Fast forward again to LS203 – The plot accelerates even more ludicrously. We have to convince people to attend our summit, which is a great premise for the episode (if we assume the previous plot beats were executed well) but to do so we end up on a laundry list of fetch quests which are again, half filler. The entire norn and asura sequences were unnecessary, and added little to the storytelling. They could have been just as easily done offscreen, or better yet handled well in their own episodes with some unique content. The Charr section had the whole crown and ghost banishing business, which should have been a significant undertaking cut down in size and scope in order to accomodate the filler. I understand nobody feels like they want to do five episodes of convincing people to come to a summit, but I think this was a perfect opportunity to write fully fleshed out race-centric episodes that would have been fun mini-narratives that still felt tied to the main narrative. We could have uncovered and dealt with an icebrood attack on hoelbrak and culminated it in a rousing feat hall declaration of intent. We could have helped the asura uncover some lost research from newly uncovered tunnels at mount maelstrom. These would have been fun episodes that advanced side lore, developed characters, and didn’t feel like rushed filler while still remaining relevant to the plot. In stead we got one such story which was rushed and felt incomplete in order to accomodate two other even more rushed and incomplete stories.

It feels like there’s an expected timetable internally, that we have to kill mord at the end of the season, and thus have to shoehorn X arc in to Y number of episodes. Why?
It’s not as if an elder dragon is a problem we should expect to solve that rapidly, and there are lingering handing threads all over the world that can be resolved.

Mord tendrils are comitting the same sin as scarlet did in LS1, they’re devices that move the plot forward in a manner that actively prevents telling a satisfying narrative, despite that narrative including interesting characters and side plots.

I think the biconics can be valuable allies, but to date they haven’t been given time to stretch their legs. If we had the opportunity to just spend an episode with each, with minor cameo appearances by others, we could develop them more as friends while also placing our characters more central to the story by filling in for qualities they don’t possess in each case. If we’re going to counterpoint taimi’s intelligence with our strength, we should be the focal point of defending something she’s doing, not one in a group. If we’re going to counterpoint brahams bullheaded nature, we should be the one constantly standing between braham and doing something dumb, not a bystander while someone else does that.

If we got to spend more time developing more personal relationships with these characters they would read a lot better when they were together, and it would make a lot more sense when they defer to us in those situations, because we’ve proven to each on an individual level that we’re qualified for the job, and that we have personal stakes in their individual welfare.

Sure, we’ve done that in the past, but it simply wasn’t enough. If the biconics were handled more like the iconics, where they rarely all arrive on scene at one time but rather work toward common purpose offscreen while we spend time with them as individuals they’d show off why they’re worthy of carrying that plot burden a lot better.

The mission’s we’ve had have been “meet this guy” and afterward we’re all now best friends rather than seend personal arcs that take us from stranger, to acquaintance, to friend.

It’s not the biconic’s fault, it’s the fact they don’t get enough screen time alone from their mutually complementing hive to shine as individuals.

The biggest sin, really, was that the biconics became an adventuring party so easily, without our involvement, and then suddenly decided that we’re in charge. If we’d been more central to forming those relationships (like the rox/braham relationship which we well established through multiple LS1 episodes which REQUIRED our input) then they’d be a lot more believable.

Shriketalon.1937:

Wonderfully thorough and spot-on analysis

Could not thumbs-up enough.

I’m afraid I don’t have much to contribute here, unfortunately, except to address the cop out I constantly see (here as well as in other threads).

Kalavier.1097:

Because they are leading nations and have very busy days.

This argument seems to crop up due to a simultaneous misunderstanding of a world leader’s role and a lack of imagination. Just because world leaders are already busy doesn’t give them license to ignore threats or developments that affect them. A characteristic of a world leader is that they have literal armies of people to delegate tasks to, and both the Humans and Charr even have formal organizations for intelligence gathering, which at the very least would be actively engaged in this matter on their own volition, provided the leadership exists at all outside of what the biconics are willing to discuss.

Also, being a former Pact commander, and especially the First Commander, even if that is the present situation, should not at all be considered a demotion in status. The PC’s role had significant regional influence, and sprawling involvement with many powerful people all over the world (read: high-level networking), as well as personal first-hand knowledge of important events. For the political power of such a person to rapidly decline within two years without some kind of major scandal or smear campaign is a contrivance that could only be imagined by a writer. People of this nature in the real world, even with far fewer accomplishments, become highly sought-after analysts, especially commercially, or go on to spearhead their own Global Initiatives.

Bill Clinton masterfully summarizes the political reality of this situation for both circumstances better than I could in just two minutes on a Fox News interview.

http://youtu.be/7DI7u-TytRU?t=2m4s

More time needs to be devoted to making the biconics OUR team, and explaining why these people are the ones we would choose.

Braham? When trouble started, he tried to get the charr to work with him to present a stronger force to deal with the problem. He was rejected, but the fact is he was the FIRST person to take the right approach to the whole thing. He showed decisiveness and serious leadership potential, which has been forgotten.

Rox? Military training, strength, loyalty, and a desperate need for a place to belong. Any team that takes her in will find her to be the unshakable heart of their group, be it in combat or in a bar.

Taimi? She’s smart, willing to go around standard procedures, and clearly has something to prove. She’s like one of the Mythbusters, with a small chip on her shoulder. For her, there’s no such thing as “impossible”, just “uninvented”. When it comes to figuring things out, she’s an outstanding choice.

Kasmeer? A strong mesmerist who apparently has ties with a larger organization of Mesmers. As a former noble who’s fallen on hard times, she’s also something of a diplomat, having learned to adjust to several different social situations.

Marjory? An expert on toxins and a natural when it comes to understanding and dealing with (or committing?) treachery. She’s the left hand of the group, the one with black market contacts and a talent for extracting information from unwilling sources. If you want something dead, and it seems immune to bullets and swords, call on her and don’t drink anything she hands you.

THIS is why we should be hanging around with this group, but it’s never really stressed. In fact, several of these aspects have been ignored after they were mentioned. We need the main character (us) to have the position of power (Commander) back, and then we need to actually select this team as the ones we’re working with. Then, remind us and the NPCs WHY we would go into a situation with this team, while other teams are working on the sidelines as well.

Lately, the only one acting in any way skilled is Taimi, and there’s good reason to ask why the asura are letting so much rest on her shoulders. We need to vouch for her as the Commander of the Pact, and we need to make an official team of the biconics. We don’t need a fancy name, “The Commander’s Personal Team” is more than enough to let people know who they’re dealing with.

Oh, and one small request: Sometime down the line, have the group declared an honorary warband. It would be good character development for Rox, even if all she does at the time is break down and cry.

Palador, have a +1.

Palador.2170:

Oh, and one small request: Sometime down the line, have the group declared an honorary warband. It would be good character development for Rox, even if all she does at the time is break down and cry.

It would take doing something monumental for the charr to make that happen. And, well . . .

I don’t want to be in an honorary warband. I want to be in what amounts to a “troubleshooting squad” – we find trouble, and we shoot it. It doesn’t matter where or what.

We can even have a motto: “We pick up where Destiny’s Edge left off.”

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Palador, have a +1.

Palador.2170:

Oh, and one small request: Sometime down the line, have the group declared an honorary warband. It would be good character development for Rox, even if all she does at the time is break down and cry.

It would take doing something monumental for the charr to make that happen. And, well . . .

I don’t want to be in an honorary warband. I want to be in what amounts to a “troubleshooting squad” – we find trouble, and we shoot it. It doesn’t matter where or what.

We can even have a motto: “We pick up where Destiny’s Edge left off.”

If they could pull the whole concept out of their kittens for the sake of Logan, I am pretty sure they could do so for the sake of the new group, to be fair.
All things considered, it -is- the commander of the pact and essentially the sole reason Zhaitan was downed, and again the group that offed Scarlet. And the Bloody Price, if we want to count that.

Soa Cirri.6012:

Kalavier.1097:

Because they are leading nations and have very busy days.

This argument seems to crop up due to a simultaneous misunderstanding of a world leader’s role and a lack of imagination. Just because world leaders are already busy doesn’t give them license to ignore threats or developments that affect them. A characteristic of a world leader is that they have literal armies of people to delegate tasks to, and both the Humans and Charr even have formal organizations for intelligence gathering, which at the very least would be actively engaged in this matter on their own volition, provided the leadership exists at all outside of what the biconics are willing to discuss.

Also, being a former Pact commander, and especially the First Commander, even if that is the present situation, should not at all be considered a demotion in status. The PC’s role had significant regional influence, and sprawling involvement with many powerful people all over the world (read: high-level networking), as well as personal first-hand knowledge of important events. For the political power of such a person to rapidly decline within two years without some kind of major scandal or smear campaign is a contrivance that could only be imagined by a writer. People of this nature in the real world, even with far fewer accomplishments, become highly sought-after analysts, especially commercially, or go on to spearhead their own Global Initiatives.

Bill Clinton masterfully summarizes the political reality of this situation for both circumstances better than I could in just two minutes on a Fox News interview.

http://youtu.be/7DI7u-TytRU?t=2m4s

Interestingly, most people I talk to still have no idea the US President does anything in office, believing it’s just a position for the Congress/Senate to badmouth and work around. And to be honest, from the outside it probably looks like they don’t do anything about some things . . . but it’s also likely not close to actuality.

Part of the responsibility of being a world leader is knowing you have the power to do something, and knowing at the same time you shouldn’t use that power that way.

I suspect we have a lot of blank space about what Queen Jennah, Smodur, and Knut Whitebear do with their time largely because the writers don’t have an itemized agenda for each day. (And why would they, anyway? That’s a ton of work to keep track of and it wouldn’t be seen or cared about by anyone.) But more importantly, it’s known there are actual concerns which are closer to home for each of them. Knut’s job is probably the worst – norn by their nature resist being led, we saw this personally back during the time of the Great Destroyer. Queen Jenna faces fierce political opposition for just about everything she does just because she’s in power. Smodur has a half-dozen problem fronts to keep track of and forgetting one of them has the result of endangering part of the charr territory.

. . . and that’s the normal state of things. Let alone with an elder dragon having awakened and its vines torn up the Iron Marches, Fort Concordia, and Fort Salma.

Guild Wars 1 henchmen had their own personal stories that didn’t piggy-back off of the main character. I rather enjoyed seeing them roaming around doing their own thing while I could bring them along if I wanted. Of course GW2 doesn’t implement the henchmen system for obvious reasons, but I still feel like the GW2 Scooby Doo Gang needs to have the same feel as the old GW1 henchmen rather than force their way into the spotlight.

Obviously the writers feel that this cliche gang knows more about fighting the dragons than Divinity’s Edge and the glorious Pact that we worked hard to create using the greatest minds and warriors in all of Tyria. Yeah… I’m really kicking myself for typing this, but I’d prefer running with Trahearne again than being the boss of a rag-tag group of misfit underdogs.

Becka Williams.4978:

GeminiArcher.7809:

Shriketalon.1937:

It is extremely important for an author to be genre savvy. You don’t tell an epic legend like you do a buddy cop comedy

Really?

looks at Tybalt

Why does everyone love this dummy, then?

I don’t know either. Sieran’s far funnier, and a way better character.

Oooh, you didn’t.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Taimi should die as a lesson to all overconfident asura.

“You’re dumb, you’ll die dumb, and leave a dumb corpse”

I’d love that.

You’re dumb, you’ll die and you’ll leave a dumb corpse.

Anairellan.6285:

I think what the OP is pointing out could be described as a lack of an operational theme in the writing of Guild Wars. It bothered me in the personal story, and in LS season 1.
…
The writing of the stories in Guild Wars pays lipservice to the world’s larger ideas, and skirts the edge of true conflict in favor of broad strokes stuff.

That article was a good read. Thanks for linking it.

And I think your point about lipservice is proved all the more fully by the most recent update. We’ve been scrapping the surface of interesting stories underlying each of the races, but we never get anything of substance. If a simple minigame can defeat the political intrigue of Kryta, it’s hardly a real threat. The story requires focus on its particular theme, and a cast that embodies that theme and brings it to life. We don’t have that right now, only the slightest hints of what could be a very good tale.

Palador.2170:

More time needs to be devoted to making the biconics OUR team, and explaining why these people are the ones we would choose.
…
Lately, the only one acting in any way skilled is Taimi, and there’s good reason to ask why the asura are letting so much rest on her shoulders. We need to vouch for her as the Commander of the Pact, and we need to make an official team of the biconics.

Why would we ever make these people “our team”? We already know better soldiers, wiser scholars, wilier rogues, and more loyal friends. Forcing our characters to defend a choice that we as the players cannot even make only highlights how contrived the situation is in the first place.

For example, take Tiami. She’s hilarious, and I am extremely fond of her as a character. She’s also the only one you listed as serving a major functional purpose on the team, and therefore the most credited member of the Biconics.

She also needs to be sent home. She’s incredibly reckless yet needs others to get her out of trouble, completely naive about the consequences of her actions, and utterly disobedient even in dire circumstances. It’s only by sheer luck that her actions in the chamber didn’t get us killed, and we’re supposed to laugh it off because our hair was sticking up.

Taking a child soldier to war is an atrocity. The only thing that would possibly prevent Taimi from getting killed in the battle to come is sheer plot armor, contrivance by the authors to make their pet character immune to consequences. If we’re approaching this from a remotely realistic angle, putting Taimi on the team to fight Mordremoth would be a death sentence. I don’t know how others pick their teams, but this Commander of the Pact doesn’t believe in leading children to their deaths.

Likewise, the rest of the team just isn’t special. They aren’t veterans of war, and the idea of constructing an elite team out of complete novices makes no sense whatsoever when we have better assets at hand. Then there’s the storytelling time issue…

PopeUrban.2578:

I think the biconics can be valuable allies, but to date they haven’t been given time to stretch their legs.

I feel I must disagree completely. We have spent time with them, ludicrous amounts. All of Season 1 was spent on their rise and Scarlet’s silly machinations. We’ve done backstory work, dramatic interactions, side by side battles, inner demons, boss fights, and fireside chats. Sure, our character hasn’t had direct voiced dialogue due to technical limitations, but the Biconics have hogged the spotlight for over a year.

Meanwhile, the rest of the story suffers from neglect, as demonstrated by the plot threads and concepts within Dragon’s Reach that glossed over far deeper and more meaningful undercurrents of each race and the days to come.

To echo Shiren’s excellent point, do you honestly want to be focusing on the Biconics when we go up against Kralkatorric? Or would you rather see a storytelling combination of Destiny’s Edge gathering for round 2 with the Elder Dragon, alongside Ascalonian characters like Eilye Jeyne, Commander Samuelsson, Galina Edgecrusher, or Snarl Backdraft? Do you think the inner drama of the Biconics should take precedence over Almorra Soulkeeper leading a final crusade against the forces that started the Vigil, or the lost daughter of Glint lending her fledgling gift of prophecy to aid the heroes against her mother’s murderer?

And in the days to come, the hunt for Jormag, the war with Primordius, the battle with Bubbles…are these five really all the story should aspire to? This world does not exist to tell these side characters’ story. Every character is secondary to the fate of the world, and when they aren’t relevant, they leave the stage and let the show go on.

Shriketalon.1937:

I don’t know how others pick their teams, but this Commander of the Pact doesn’t believe in leading children to their deaths.

I would make any asura lead from the front lines, absolutely. Especially one as capable as Taimi. Those who refused would then be sent to the front lines by catapult.

For the good of Tyria.

Likewise, the rest of the team just isn’t special. They aren’t veterans of war, and the idea of constructing an elite team out of complete novices makes no sense whatsoever when we have better assets at hand. Then there’s the storytelling time issue…

You don’t say . . .

So, they’re practically comparable to the player character in all three campaigns of GW1? Fresh-faced and untried adventurers released to try to stem horrible events from happening?

Or how about most RPG protagonists ever . . . especially more than a few from “better games” like Neverwinter Nights, Baldur’s Gate, arguably Mass Effect, Dragon Age . . . the Dragon Quest series . . . Adol Cristin . . .

I’m really sorry but the idea they’re undeserving because they’re not special enough makes me laugh. Our characters are barely special when we’re supposed to be taken under the wing of a Destiny’s Edge member early on, or fast-tracked to high rank in the Order of our choice. The only reason we are is because we’re the player character.

I mean, we do a lot of special things, but the plot contrivances aren’t limited to the biconics.

PopeUrban.2578:

I think the biconics can be valuable allies, but to date they haven’t been given time to stretch their legs.

I feel I must disagree completely. We have spent time with them, ludicrous amounts. All of Season 1 was spent on their rise and Scarlet’s silly machinations. We’ve done backstory work, dramatic interactions, side by side battles, inner demons, boss fights, and fireside chats. Sure, our character hasn’t had direct voiced dialogue due to technical limitations, but the Biconics have hogged the spotlight for over a year.

No, they hogged the spotlight only after Scarlet showed up and barely took center stage at all until much later in that arc. They were there, but they weren’t important or central to the focus of the story. Scarlet, on the other hand, was.

Meanwhile, the rest of the story suffers from neglect, as demonstrated by the plot threads and concepts within Dragon’s Reach that glossed over far deeper and more meaningful undercurrents of each race and the days to come.

The story’s been suffering from having too many dangling plot threads for long before this. It’s mystifying they chose to add a sixth dragon to the pile when we had two very good candidates to chase after before Mordremoth.

To echo Shiren’s excellent point, do you honestly want to be focusing on the Biconics when we go up against Kralkatorric?

No, I’d like to be focusing on why in the heck I can’t load golems into a trebuchet or use a beacon like my great ancestor did when working with Gadd, Oola, and Vekk. I’d love to drop tons of golems on tons of plant monstrosities.

And in the days to come, the hunt for Jormag, the war with Primordius, the battle with Bubbles…are these five really all the story should aspire to?

I’d rather they tell the story being told than the one us players are trying to tell them to show-and-tell. Because, odds are, even if they lifted the ideas directly from our posts or emails? It still wouldn’t be good enough for the bulk of the customers, and besides would just borrow from a different set of cliches.

This world does not exist to tell these side characters’ story. Every character is secondary to the fate of the world, and when they aren’t relevant, they leave the stage and let the show go on.

Yes, but then you have a ton of characters who have no relevance and then no reason to get attached to them. You have things like the mentors who barely have time to become characters before they are ushered out by diablo-ex-machina, or Demmi Beetlestone who vanishes completely for having something of terrible and paramount importance to have a very involved field mission made up to get her safe.

I would vastly prefer a smaller cast we can relate to than a vast cast of nobodies who filter in and out a revolving casting call. Because, let’s be honest . . . that’s pretty much what our characters are anyway.

Despite all this? The world of Tyria is big enough to host a lot of different stories. Even the ones we don’t like. (cough, cough, Magister Sieran…)

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Queen Jenna faces fierce political opposition for just about everything she does just because she’s in power. Smodur has a half-dozen problem fronts to keep track of and forgetting one of them has the result of endangering part of the charr territory.

. . . and that’s the normal state of things. Let alone with an elder dragon having awakened and its vines torn up the Iron Marches, Fort Concordia, and Fort Salma.

Fort Salma is a Saraph fort. The Iron Marches is territory the Charr are actively fighting to hold. Just because the queen and Smodur have several plates spinning in the air already doesn’t mean they can simply ignore direct threats to their soldiers and their people. As Clinton says, they may have lots of things they want to do at once, but they are still at the mercy of events.

You talk about political restrictions and implications of Jenna overextending, but how much worse would those be if word got out that a human fort (one that is a final-line-of-defense bastion against the centaurs keeping them out of Queensdale, and named after Queen Salma, no less) was completely destroyed, with several casualties, and she sat back and did nothing?

In the latest update she even talks about putting a team together to investigate this new threat (precisely what I suggested would be fairly easy for her to do), but only after you “convince” her (the PC’s arguments are hardly anything that should sway a monarch’s mind, especially one who’s lasted this long against so many political enemies).

…Why didn’t she do that immediately?

But that’s getting sidetracked. The latest update has actually shown some attempt at improvement. Even if a minigame is all it takes to undo a political machination that took a year to implement (though a pretty weak sauce plan, considering the time frame) at least it made sense for whatserface to be there “helping” you, and they didn’t shoehorn in Marjory so they could banter about how much they wuv each other for the 500th time.

Taimi continues to be a living time bomb, but at least her mission revealed a bit more about what total kittens the Asura leadership can be, although I’m sure we will probably never be given a payoff for that situation (unless Phlunt is horribly killed by Taimi down the line). The PC is surprisingly unsympathetic to the concerns of a vulnerable genius child who worships Scarlet and increasingly feels shunned and wronged by her peers. And also encourages the participation of children in combat.

Trahearne finally explains about the Pact’s reticence, although it’s kind of a too-little, too-late thing. They should at the very least been mobilized immediately when Concordia was attacked.

It seems likely that at least some of these changes (especially Trahearne’s “talk-to-me-to-learn-about-the-retcon”) are due to feedback. In some ways it’s encouraging, but it also reinforces the idea that they are so unsure of how to go about this coherently that it takes the collective player base to remind them of things that they should have known to integrate into the story themselves.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Yes, but then you have a ton of characters who have no relevance and then no reason to get attached to them. You have things like the mentors who barely have time to become characters before they are ushered out by diablo-ex-machina, or Demmi Beetlestone who vanishes completely for having something of terrible and paramount importance to have a very involved field mission made up to get her safe.

I would vastly prefer a smaller cast we can relate to than a vast cast of nobodies who filter in and out a revolving casting call. Because, let’s be honest . . . that’s pretty much what our characters are anyway.

….I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing.

A rotating cast doesn’t mean that characters are treated like tissue paper, pulled out of nowhere and then thrown away to be never seen again. I concur, a bunch of nobodies wouldn’t work at all. But a rotating cast isn’t about that, it’s a stage where multiple characters can enter the spotlight for a brief time, return to the wings, and then do it all over again in other story. Rotating casts can and do have recurring characters going through a distinct development arc, but no one individual or group become the center of the entire play.

For example…take Demmi Beetlestone.

I’m glad you brought her up, because she’s an excellent side character with tons of potential. Her connections to Krytan politics, her new role in the Order of Whispers, the familial connection to a sinister villain, all storytelling gold. But if the current pace keeps up, Demmi’s tale will never be told, or worse, it will get wrapped up in a single episode when Kasmeer uses her super lie detector power to figure everything out.

But imagine, if you will, a rotating cast alongside (trite and cliche) stories….

In one episode, the Vigil and Whispers might collaborate to aid the struggling peace conference in Ascalon from renegade and separatist insurrection. The operation is spearheaded by Demmi Beetlestone, Korukhan the “Blacksmith”, Eilye Jeyne, and Gahn Towerbreaker, reporting directly to Commander Samuelsson on behest of Halvorra Snapdagger and Almorra Soulkeeper.

Later on, the Consortium attempts a hostile takeover of the Black Lion Trading Company’s holdings in Lion’s Arch as the community struggles to rebuild. In a surprise turn of events, Ebon Gnashblade proposes a mutually beneficial arrangement with the Order, calling for Whisper agents to expose the Consortium and bring the iron fist of the Lionguard crashing down. Agents Ihan, Batenga, Ifwyn, and Cai are on point, with Demmi and Valenze acting as support.

As politics in Kryta deteriorate, Demmi reluctantly returns to her home alongside Lady Wi and Doern Velazquez in order to root out the source. Together with Countess Anise and Exemplars Mehid and Salia, they uncover evidence of everyone’s favorite group of fanatical cultists…

And finally, in a major feature for the entire Krytan region, the White Mantle attempts an assault upon the palace itself through their agents and saboteurs. The story focuses primarily on the major players of the city and a very old enemy of the Krytan bloodline, but also features the confrontation between two generations of Beetlestone nobles in the heart of the burning capital.

Cliches aside, this is an example of a rotating cast. While several of these stories would be far shorter than the current season (or be part of a larger arc, such as an Ascalonian focused season for the first) and would likely have to be far more intricate and interesting in practice, these kinds of tales can bring out the nuances of Tyria and the characters within it. None of the stories are specifically about Demmi, but her inclusion in the stories provides a unique perspective. Likewise, her interactions with various other characters like Whispers agents, Ascalonians and Krytans, and other nobles helps reveal her personality far more elegantly than shining a massive spotlight on her for months at a time. These stories could be extremely far apart, and Demmi may only appear once in the span of a year, but over the course of Guild Wars 2 we will watch her arc unfold alongside so many others as part of a living world.

Now, one could claim that it wouldn’t be enough to really give these characters any personality, but we know that isn’t the case. Ambient characters have already been brought to life by the Living Story, and this is simply expanding on that concept in order to delve into more interesting facets of Tyria. Every single one of the characters I mentioned could have their own perspective on the world and their own development in the years to come, provided we got beyond the notion that we need a main cast following us around and soaking up all the development time.

I get what you’re saying, but a rotating cast like you describe? Wouldn’t appear that much far off from how things are happening now with other characters – they come in, they do their roles, and then leave the focus.

About the only difference is the biconics existing . . . which is largely, from what I see now, so we can have allies to do solo instances with instead of forced grouping. Mechanically speaking, of course, not thematically or narratively.

And I still hold the opinion not all the biconics are a terrible choice for allies. Braham and Rox, and to a slightly lesser extent Taimi, are actually pretty solid as characters. (Disclaimer: As solid as any other ones we’ve gotten in GW2.) Marjory and Kasmeer are the two most people seem to agree stick out like a sore thumb . . . I don’t think that’s the case, so much as they are completely out of their element and it shows.

This could be salvaged, and probably will be better once we get further along. Rox already did improve a lot from what when she was introduced, into having her own character rather than “Yes, Rytlock, sir” . . . Braham isn’t too much further off, though he’s still pretty touchy about his parents.

Kasmeer and Marjory would have been better served as a support team rather than “in the action”. Researching and campaigning for aid would have been a better niche to put them into, and probably would have made the story stronger . . . even if it would definitely have invited criticisms about females being made to be nothing but support characters.

Soa Cirri.6012:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Queen Jenna faces fierce political opposition for just about everything she does just because she’s in power. Smodur has a half-dozen problem fronts to keep track of and forgetting one of them has the result of endangering part of the charr territory.

. . . and that’s the normal state of things. Let alone with an elder dragon having awakened and its vines torn up the Iron Marches, Fort Concordia, and Fort Salma.

Fort Salma is a Saraph fort. The Iron Marches is territory the Charr are actively fighting to hold. Just because the queen and Smodur have several plates spinning in the air already doesn’t mean they can simply ignore direct threats to their soldiers and their people. As Clinton says, they may have lots of things they want to do at once, but they are still at the mercy of events.

You talk about political restrictions and implications of Jenna overextending, but how much worse would those be if word got out that a human fort (one that is a final-line-of-defense bastion against the centaurs keeping them out of Queensdale, and named after Queen Salma, no less) was completely destroyed, with several casualties, and she sat back and did nothing?

About as well as if she had mobilized and the Seraph unit was entirely destroyed in the face of Mordremoth’s attack. Seriously, with the opposition in Krytan politics? It’s a no-win trying to avoid contemptful oratory.

In the latest update she even talks about putting a team together to investigate this new threat (precisely what I suggested would be fairly easy for her to do), but only after you “convince” her (the PC’s arguments are hardly anything that should sway a monarch’s mind, especially one who’s lasted this long against so many political enemies).

…Why didn’t she do that immediately?

Who knows? Maybe she had to work on making sure her cat took first place again. Yes, that’s sarcasm but in all seriousness we are so much not privy to the daily politics which have to get dealt with for her. Far as I know, most of that time is spent taking audiences and then trying to get things done. And it’s probably based . . . like most things, on old Rome. Where it’s never quite clear what the Senate did other than exist and ensure it continued to exist.

Show of hands, who wants to have a team do nothing but try to construct the political landscape of Kryta, where we can’t actually do much to alter things but we get to see what keeps her and the ministers busy all the time?

But that’s getting sidetracked. The latest update has actually shown some attempt at improvement.

I won’t get to really cut my teeth on it until Sunday, unfortunately. Lots of extra stuff I have to get done with work and household matters so I won’t get a good block of time to do more than log in and hit trees for an hour.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I get what you’re saying, but a rotating cast like you describe? Wouldn’t appear that much far off from how things are happening now with other characters – they come in, they do their roles, and then leave the focus.

About the only difference is the biconics existing . . . which is largely, from what I see now, so we can have allies to do solo instances with instead of forced grouping. Mechanically speaking, of course, not thematically or narratively.

Mechanically, you are absolutely right. The NPCs in the instances are basically there to act as failsafes to revive you if you’re downed and meatshields to take a few hits.

But it’s the narrative and thematic hook that I would assert is the core of the discussion. The story being written depends upon who is pushing the buttons, pulling the levers, finding the clues, networking with allies, and moving the plot forward. As long as the Biconics are the main party, they’ll be writing stories exactly like everything in Season 2 thus far. And while it is only my opinion, I really don’t want to see that happen for Seasons 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kasmeer and Marjory would have been better served as a support team rather than “in the action”. Researching and campaigning for aid would have been a better niche to put them into, and probably would have made the story stronger . . . even if it would definitely have invited criticisms about females being made to be nothing but support characters.

Now this? This is an excellent point.

You are absolutely correct, we aren’t building a support staff. We can’t keep stumbling into every single situation and hoping we luck out with a random person onhand who can decipher what is going on. We need proactive information gathering, scouting, research, a bit of skullduggery, and perhaps someone very good with a billy club in back alleys. We should be making friends with smiths and engineers, allying with commanders and centurions, extending our feelers into numerous pies across Tyria.

But to do that, we’ll need storytelling time. And coincidentally, we’d probably get it if we broadened our character horizons just a bit by widening the lens…

Shriketalon.1937:

Mechanically, you are absolutely right. The NPCs in the instances are basically there to act as failsafes to revive you if you’re downed and meatshields to take a few hits.

That also which is nice, but really they’re there in case you need a meatshield, or you need more help, or whatever. Really, they’re there so you don’t need a party. Mechanically.

But it’s the narrative and thematic hook that I would assert is the core of the discussion. The story being written depends upon who is pushing the buttons, pulling the levers, finding the clues, networking with allies, and moving the plot forward. As long as the Biconics are the main party, they’ll be writing stories exactly like everything in Season 2 thus far. And while it is only my opinion, I really don’t want to see that happen for Seasons 3, 4, 5, and 6.

And I submit it’s not that bad if they set it up properly instead of doing what they did with the PS and rushing through the plot points rapidly and not setting up the development very well. They can, if it is properly done, share in the spotlight and move in and out of it as they need to around the player character. The problem is not centered in the existence, or the writing of the biconics.

It’s in the way the story is paced and yanking you around by the short hairs to get you through all the necessary plot points without letting any of them really seep in and make an impact.

Now this? This is an excellent point.

You are absolutely correct, we aren’t building a support staff. We can’t keep stumbling into every single situation and hoping we luck out with a random person onhand who can decipher what is going on. We need proactive information gathering, scouting, research, a bit of skullduggery, and perhaps someone very good with a billy club in back alleys. We should be making friends with smiths and engineers, allying with commanders and centurions, extending our feelers into numerous pies across Tyria.

But to do that, we’ll need storytelling time. And coincidentally, we’d probably get it if we broadened our character horizons just a bit by widening the lens…

We really do need more work done to add . . .verisimilitude (your big word for the day, folks) to us being important. Rather than us being important because shut up.

I don’t think the lens needs to be widened. I think the lens needs to be cleaned, polished, and focused more. Wide angles are beautiful, but it’s just a tool in the toolkit for how to do your film, to extend the analogy. Sometimes you want wide angles. Sometimes you don’t.

In this case, I think the story would suffer if it was widened out – it’d pick up too much extraneous threads and collapse. It needs to be tighter, paced just in the right beats, and let us grow to like the characters instead of "oh, sure, we’re friends . . . I guess? . . . "

Soa Cirri.6012:

Taimi continues to be a living time bomb, but at least her mission revealed a bit more about what total kittens the Asura leadership can be, although I’m sure we will probably never be given a payoff for that situation (unless Phlunt is horribly killed by Taimi down the line). The PC is surprisingly unsympathetic to the concerns of a vulnerable genius child who worships Scarlet and increasingly feels shunned and wronged by her peers. And also encourages the participation of children in combat.

Um, a few things.

A: Asura are like that. The only good thing is when Taimi graduates and becomes a full adult citizen, she may get those designs back and labeled as her. Or not, depends on if she continues to be on Phlunt’s bad side.
B: The PC recognizes that they need the Asura Arcane council in the meeting. If it means bending a little to an angry old asura, they’ll bend a little. Taimi’s device isn’t worth losing the possibility of Asura in the summit, and perhaps Asura support for the entire effort. basically, it’s “Let Taimi keep her device, lose the Asura support.” or “Give up Taimi’s device, get the chance of Asura support.”
C: How does the PC encourage the participation of children in combat?

Between work, new content and leveling x number of characters to 80, I haven’t found much time to post, but I have to agree with most of what was said in the OP. Well written and thought out.

The most interesting thing about the Scooby analogy is that my husband practically thought the same thing about how the biconics, D.E. 2.0, aka characters we’re forced to stick around for the most part, seem to match. I also don’t want to be Scrappy-doo.

I feel like I’m playing through someone else’s story and if I want it to be different I have to rationalize or change things in my head for it to make sense. I really shouldn’t be doing that for story in which my character should be taking charge (is told that he/she is taking charge), but in reality is being lead by other voiced characters.

Oh Jesus. The biconics are scooby kittening doo. That’s both somewhat awesome and somewhat depressing. But let me flip this theory on it’s side for a moment. I posit that the player is not Scrappy Doo. Instead, I believe we’re Sonny and Cher from The New Scooby-Doo Movies. We’re A-List celebrities (Sonny and Cher, for those who might not know, were quite popular musicians and actors through the late 60s and early 70s) somehow stuck with a bunch of B-List teens trying to solve a mystery. Which would make the Pact the Harlem Globetrotters and Belinda Delaqua is Phyllis Diller.

Anyhow, it has bugged me somewhat that the commander of the Pact has had to do this song and dance routine to get the various racial leaders to meet. To use a bad analogy, it would be like if a restaurant caught on fire and the cooks ignored the billowing smoke and flames and kept cooking. Then the fire chief shows up and tells the cooks that the building is burning down, and they still ignore the flames and smoke and firefighters, and instead send the fire chief on a series of errands around the kitchen before they’ll listen. Stir a pot here, grab some carrots over there, and then they’re shocked when it all burns down around them. Tyria, I guess, is chock-full of dummies.

I think it’s worth pointing out this game isn’t made for adults. Obviously not saying adults aren’t part of the target market, but surely not the largest part. There’s a reason it’s rated T, and it probably isn’t because the writers wanted to spent their days writing the cheesiest dialogue since, well, yes, Scooby Doo.

geekanerd.4123:

Oh Jesus. The biconics are scooby kittening doo. That’s both somewhat awesome and somewhat depressing. But let me flip this theory on it’s side for a moment. I posit that the player is not Scrappy Doo. Instead, I believe we’re Sonny and Cher from The New Scooby-Doo Movies. We’re A-List celebrities (Sonny and Cher, for those who might not know, were quite popular musicians and actors through the late 60s and early 70s) somehow stuck with a bunch of B-List teens trying to solve a mystery. Which would make the Pact the Harlem Globetrotters and Belinda Delaqua is Phyllis Diller.

Oh god, you’re right. We’re the guest stars. We’re the unimportant person there to be a big name and stumble over one obvious “hidden” switch while the Scooby gang does all the real work.

geekanerd.4123:

To use a bad analogy, it would be like if a restaurant caught on fire and the cooks ignored the billowing smoke and flames and kept cooking. Then the fire chief shows up and tells the cooks that the building is burning down, and they still ignore the flames and smoke and firefighters, and instead send the fire chief on a series of errands around the kitchen before they’ll listen. Stir a pot here, grab some carrots over there, and then they’re shocked when it all burns down around them. Tyria, I guess, is chock-full of dummies.

You call that a bad analog! Ha!
Lets say that the building next door (or perhaps even two doors over) catches fire, but the cooks are ignoring it because they have a packed room full of Flame Legion wanting food (and you know they’re going to rebel if you don’t start feeding immediately), and the health inspector showed up (so they got to get rid of all the Ascalonian ghost in the basement), and they haven’t been performing very well financially and the restaurant is on the edge of being purchased by the Nightmare Court Inc. who want to bulldoze the place and build a strip club etc.
Basically they have a lot of things to get done and bad repercussion if they don’t do them.
The fire chief comes in and they put him to work, stirring a pot here, grabbing some carrots over there to help put out as much food as possible so the clientele doesn’t burn the place down themselves. Oh and the send the fire chief to keep mean old Mr Inquest, the health inspector, busy while the dish washers try to sneak out the back with a several bag full of ghost.
So not dummies, just people very very very much hoping that someone else (like the fire department) is going to put out the fire before it gets to them.

Sorann Peace.9056:

Scooby Doo is a corny cartoon. Guild Wars 2 and the biconics are not corny nor are they a cartoon. They’ve been in many situations which involve death and destruction, something Scooby Doo rarely gets itself involved in.

Pardon me while I put on a cow costume and teach some cows how to fight. Ahem. With elements like that in place, GW2 is several steps beyond corny.

The player character is actually Vincent Van Ghoul, from the 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.

Let the nostalgia commence!