Guild Wars 2

(NOTE: Inspired by Shirklaton’s post here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/The-Biconics-cannot-carry-the-GW-Franchise/page/3#post4337780)

Anet should turn LS into a campaign system like D&D Online and GW1 (esp. the Eye of the North expansion). That way, every part of the game could be addressed instead of one tiny section. LS’s focus should be world events instead of the Biconics.

There could be Mordremoth-related campaigns on:

—Jennah loyalists vs. the Separatists (Perhaps the White Mantle could get involved to mess things up too!)

— The charr legions create a dangerous alliance with the Flame Legion in order to get rid of the Mordrem. The human Separatists would use this as proof that Jennah’s treaty can’t be trusted, and it could start a war between the Vanguard, Jenna’s loyalists, and the Charr again! Once war breaks out, the players would need to choose which side they would be on! This campaign could easily introduce new strategy-based WvW maps that look alot like the open world, and it would be complete with wars between Factions instead of servers! .

— The Sylvari would be busy trying to find way to help Mama Tree heal. A member of the Priory would mention tree healers among the Meguuma centaurs, and the PCs would be off in search of these healers.

We could also meet up with the Master of Peace once more!

— The Norn really need to claim their identity back. They’re too domesticated in this game. Knut Whitebear’s reaction to the Shadow of the Dragon was just sad, and the Spirits really need to confront him over it. Their shamans could discover the White Stag in the Grove, have a vision associated with it, and feel the need to help the Sylvari save the Pale Tree as penance for Whitebear’s cowardly actions. BTW, the Stag is still currently in the care of the Kahedin and the Cycle of Dusk Sylvari.

— The Asura need another Central Transfer Chamber incident. Why? The current leaders (like Phlunt) have gotten too proud. It obvious that they don’t see the threat that Mordie poses to their advance society. The plant dragon could easy eat up all their supply, destroy all the wps, demolish the golems, and destroy Rata Sum (like in the Uncategorized Fractal). I would have Mordie devour CoE before taking on Rata Sum. Then the PCs would do damage control and rescue missions.

— The destruction of Lion’s Arch means that the pirates and thugs that used to live there are causing chaos everywhere else. Campaign missions and open world events would involve rebuilding the city, controlling the chaos caused by the gangsters, and re-establishing LA’s political presence.

—Meanwhile, Mordremoth takes advantage of the chaos (after he eats all the energy in CoE). The invasions return, and we meet new major players on Mordie’s team!

See? No need for biconics. All of these ideas could easily be played out by PCs from any race since the PCs are well-known Pact commanders. I would give the option of letting the players choose which campaigns mean more to them tho. The devs just need to focus on creating world events that can make players feel proactive in the game.

kta.6502:

— The Norn really need to claim their identity back.

Indeed.

The core problem Norn suffer right now is that the writers really aren’t interested in their perspective. The current narrative drastically favors Asura for explaining everything about the world and analyzing anything weird or magical. Likewise, Sylvari are the main focus of the moral aspect of the game, and Ye Old Dichotomy of Good And Evil is framed almost entirely through their machinations. Humans get a few bones thrown at them in the social story department, but not enough to really sink our teeth into the meat, and the Charr war isn’t going anywhere. But the ones really left starving for attention are the Norn, who are far too often portrayed as enormous idiots.

I think giving them back their mojo would require a threefold approach.

Number 1, play up the danger of the Shiverpeaks. Surviving in the hostile reaches of the cold is supposed to be extremely difficult, but it can’t do that by gameplay alone. The MMO world is full of dangerous creatures by default, so giving the ’peaks an edge will require some storytelling expertise. Frostbite, blizzards, vaettir, beasts, and brood are everywhere, and the frozen wastes should feel like they are constantly trying to kill every single warm body that strolls in the snow.

This hardy lifestyle in turn toughens up everyone as they cope with the hostile environment. This means that typical leatherworkers, tavern wenches, doylak herders, and herbalists have strength and fortitude similar to soldiers of another species. Your typical Norn is extremely tough, but also extremely competent, since survival requires a certain set of skills. If most Charr understand military expertise and most Asura navigate the magitech world with great alacrity, the vast majority of Norn have honed their skills in enduring hostile terrain and surviving and thriving in extreme environments. The ones lacking that skill and ability are dead.

Number 2, amp up the role as guardians of the Mists and Spirits. Humans are religions and Sylvari are empathic, but no one should be more attuned to the innate magic of the world than the shamans and havrouns of the Norn. Every Norn hero can shapeshift, and that implies a very strong connection to the spirits of the wild.

It’s a terrible shame that everything magical is currently solved by Asuran perspectives, because their viewpoint should be limited. The idea of the Eternal Alchemy should be one perspective on the nature of reality, not an accurate analysis of all reality in itself. It’s just like the way the human mythos of the Gods isn’t accurate, but neither is it entirely false. To the Asura, the world should be a vast and complicated machine meant to be analyzed and inspected, and primitive superstitions only interfere with scientific thought.

But to a Norn, the Asura should seem like fools using dead equations and sterile labs to attempt to comprehend a living song of life. Magic is alive in Guild Wars 2. The Spirits prove that. The mere existence of normal animals spontaneously gives rise to sentient avatars of their greatest traits, beings that are one with their kind yet independent at the same time. The spirits are fantastic, and the Asuran approach to magic has no room for fantasy. Only science.

Tyria needs both.

And Number 3, bring out the skalds. Legend, renown, and glory are cornerstones of Norn culture. Artifacts, places of power, legendary creatures, and sagas of ancient powers should be common knowledge among their people. Might and magic run deep in the history of Tyria, and only the humans should rival the Norn when it comes to knowledge of all that has come before. And let’s be honest, half the reason the humans are better is due to their enormous List Of All The Things We Used To Own.

Taken together, the skald, shaman, and survivalist aspects of the Norn are absolutely necessary to embody just how competent the race is supposed to be. Norn aren’t dumb. Norn aren’t brutes. Norn aren’t fools. Norn are the intersection between Viking raiders, Mongol steppe nomads, and Native American shamans who happen to be nine feet tall and turn into bears.

If they aren’t being @#%ing bad$%^ in the story, the story is being written wrong.

That’s one thing I really liked about the way you convince Knut Whitebear at the Summit, actually. If you’re a Norn, you can remind him of what it truly means to be Norn; taking on what seems like impossible challenges, all for the chance to gain immortal glory, even if it means your death. (For if you fail, at least your attempt too will go down in legend.) For too long, the Norn have taken a more pragmatic, cautious approach, hunkering down and fighting off the Svanir and Icebrood. It’s time for them to live life on the edge again, savoring each moment of life as if it could be your last.

For we are Norn. And that is the Norn way.

Shriketalon.1937:

-snip-

Ignoring the cliches and quality issues of the stuff I just wrote, the story shouldn’t be about one single character. By using the world of Tyria itself as the main source of inspiration, the writers can tell numerous tails across the realm that expand on gameplay and flesh out interesting nuances of the game, combining them with brand new mechanics and improved content. Because that’s how we’ll get beyond just five characters and actually see what is beyond the literary horizon.

This is exactly the entire point where the LS fails at the moment.
It does not write a world, it tries to write a adventure group in an epic adventure.

The whole confusion people have in general with S1 and now S2 is: “Why these guys?”

In LS1, nobody except of Majory was actually mandatory (aside from their introduction) to bring Scarlet down. In fact we could argue that there should have been several other people who would have been more suitable and available to track and hunt her, discribing a world who is not just waiting for things to happen but is actually proactive.
LS1 introduced me to the idea that the world of Tyria is stupid and the existence of the rag tag team of adventurers was actually the catalyst.
Pushing them in front to be “the ones” who uncover the mystery, but having them do nothing special to do so was just infuriating.
It made you ask: “What about the rest of Tyria? These are not really special people, but they get Scarlet, but several kittened off nations are unable to get even close to her? Not even the Orders who actively investigate her?”

Unfortunatly this trend continues further, “luckily” not entirely based on the Biconics, but them just being so prominent in the narrative does not really help the case.

In LS2, the Biconics should have been the hook to get us in (an adventure to get to the bottom of the roar), but after the reveal of Mordremoth, other characters should have been reintroduced and the Biconics taken their place in the background as helper, while the people who are actually know what to do and are experienced with these things do their job (literraly. The pact not apearing from the moment the roar was heard, Trahearn kicking back telling us “yeah yeah we are comming” and everyone else just basicly telling us: “yeah, an eldar dragon, we know” is just infurating… and that`s just the obvious annoying stuff).

They went from interesting, to fanservice, to pushed into our face, to being mostly annoying, because they start hurting the story.

They are good characters on their own, but nothing more at the moment.

It’s time to bring this thread back from the dead, because for the love of Gaile Gray, we don’t want to create attention-grabbing multiposts.

The new Destiny’s Edge suffers from a phenomena I’ll call the Anti-Trahearne phenomena.
Back in the days many players hated Trahearne, a hate I can only partially agree with.
ArenaNet acknoledged this and I’ve even seen dev posts along the lines of „We don’t want to create a Trehearne v2“

The most common complaint that ArenaNet picked up was that it felt like playing through Trahearne’s story instead of their own.
The secondary character Trahearne has too much lore tied to him, so our lore does fall short, that was the complaint they were getting.

The new cast, the Biconics do have almost no story attached to them, they don’t even have a real explanation why they’re following us around. Ofcourse, Marjory and Kasmeer want to know why Theo Ashford died, but that’s a rather bad explanation why they’re following us around since over a year now. Braham and Rox have also responsibilities they have to meet. Braham has a village to rebuild and to establish his legend while Rox could’ve been part of Rytlock’s warband.

Instead they always follow us around now, opposed to the Living Story where we followed Trahearne. Problem now is that the story arc of Trahearne isn’t the real problem and that the anti-Trahearne behavior of the new cast is by far no advantage.
The real problems Trahearne has is that his voiceacting is pretty bad. He’s the Dinklebot of GW2. Furthermore is he as NPC utterly weak. The biggest problem however is that our story falls short while Trahearne is around. His story arc isn’t the problems but our lack thereof.

The Biconics have the same problem, just the other way around: Their story does fall short as long as we are around. All of the DE v2 characters are fine as long as they stay in their own story, but since they’re following us around like puppets they’re annoying. This and the facts Shriketalon already mentioned lead to the problems they suffer from now.

So in conclusion, while ArenaNet tried to avoid the mistakes they’ve made with Trahearne, they’ve created the same kind of problems.

It would be nice if we could pick and choose NPC companions for LS chapters, even if it was just for story purposes instead of as full-fledged Guild Wars ‘heroes’. That would help make each player character’s story a little more personal — and lively.

Maybe something like a ‘pool’ of NPC characters, more or less on the periphery of our characters’ stories, each with his or her own ‘side story/relationship development’ missions in which the bonds of friendship (or just plain, hey we work well together, let’s team up, k) could be established and, if desired, strengthened.

Almost like a collection…

I think the issue here is that A.net didn’t really avoid the mistakes they made with Trahearne. They’re unfortunately unable to do so due to limitations. We need to see our characters become more prominent in the story, but due to a lack of availability for the voice actors, that becomes a significant problem. We’re relegated to text while the DE 2.0 has actual voice-acted dialogue.

That said, there are significant problems with the characters themselves. They’re more often than not drab, flat, a poorly concocted mixture of character elements, or blatant fan service. The only member of this group I actually see as a character is Taimi, and to be honest, first impressions last. A.net has done a significant job making the characters seem more like characters, but I think they’ve been ruined, not just for me, but for a large portion of the playerbase.

It may be time to retire a number of them to minor roles in the Living Story and bring in a fresh cast that is not only more worthy of working alongside the Commander of the Pact who’s had experience bringing down multiple dragons, but who also have more to their stories than a handful of character flaws or character traits meant either for the shock value or to push some kind of agenda.

What’s more, we certainly need one member of -each- of the playable races in this group, not two of some, zero of another.

I just think that the characters have to go back to their own stories. It’s ok if Rox or Braham follow us around but only if they have a better reason to do so than “I got nothing to do anyways”. That’s why I’m so in favor of a hand-picked pact scouts instead of those amateurs we now have as “friends”. And if we ever need a detective we still can ask Marjory for help.

Agree with anything you said here about the LW ‘soap cast’ … they are not really bad, but not very good either. Marjory is still my favorite (besides Taimi) – BEFORE she got engaged with this blonde chick …. Moreover, why am I forced to be a Pact Commander at all?! =8-) This is why I love Trahearne so much. Loved roaming around with him in the latter part of the personal story. :-) Both of us – Trahearne and my bombshell Norn – are some truly manqué heroes, drawn into a plot they’d rather would stay off from. Trahearne because of his intellectual ambition as a Priory researcher and my Norn as its simply Not Fun for her to play a military leader. 8-( … where she rather would prowl around with her buddies, pulling out dragon teeth. :-)

Most of this thread has been about the flaws of the biconics and their misuse in the GW2 lore. I agree with almost every post on here. However, we are unfortunately stuck with them and need to have a better use for them in the story. I personally found Scarlet’s story more interesting after we had already killed her; I feel the writers did a good job with Scarlet’s character development in S2 (although it would have been much more meaningful had Scarlet been properly developed as a character in S1 rather than given a campy Harley Quinn persona). I dislike the biconics and think their story has been a waste of time so far, but after seeing how they worked out Scarlet’s backstory in S2 I feel they can still recover.

I’d like to see the biconics all killed and corrupted and forced to make tough decisions that would not lead to a happy ending for everyone. Marjory’s sister dying was poorly done imo because her character had as much development as Antarctica. I think it would be interesting to see Braham sacrifice his life to save Taimi or Kasmeer forced to kill a corrupted Marjory. I feel the biconics shouldn’t be the GW2 Scooby Doo gang and become a symbol of the dangers of dragon corruption.

Lastly I think the characters that have the most potential in LS are Canach, Countess Anise, and Trahearne. Trahearne isn’t a bad character imo, he was simply written poorly in a manner that hijacked the personal story; this is a chance for ANet to bring back Trahearne and the Pact the right way, along with letting us become the Commander again rather than a LS babysitter.

These are my personal opinions on the matter.

Again I feel the Biconics should die as a result of the storyline, a failure to protect the friends you have bonded with up until this point would be a blow to the players personal character.

Its essentially a lesson of life.

You were their leader YOU cost them their lives, YOU are responsible for the people YOU lead.

It’d be good to add that level of depth to the story because then you could finally return to the members of destinies edge. Maybe not all of them at once but you could focus on them, on the players involvement as their glue that held them together against Zhaitan.

In essence, you could give the player the role of the leader they are supposed to be.

I also agree that Canach and Anise work well, Faren too. I was painfully let down that Belinda ended up being a token sacrifice, as it felt rushed and I was literally predicting it.

Tressus having some small role in part 4 was okay, but lets hope he actually does something now.

Master of Peace I hope to god wont end up being killed off in some dumb way considering he was an interesting char that could be a hero or villain or both.

Also, we need some attention on Kiel and Evon, I was told Evon was planning to do something in Season 2 and we haven’t even seen a teaser of that yet.

Story development and leading characters need to feel leading, player characters need to feel like they help develop these people.

For better or worse.

Equally, the player needs to feel at the forefront, in the end, its about your destiny not the edge of destiny (pun intended) so fighting a dragon alone even if that sounds obnoxious should really be the players journey.

For the content outside the story, there are big world bosses and potential raids to do.

Focus story wise, on making the players journey the most important thing, not their friends.

I think the only from the biconics that can give a sense of real cooperation, epicness and might is:
Rytlock Brimstone!!!!!!!!!!!

In the dragon’s reach P1 i had for the first time a true powerful companion, i enjoyed too much the brief experience with him…
I don’t want to fight beside kids, shiny couples, fake commanders (I’m talking about the firstborn), i want to have always on my side a companion, a true leader, a brave warrior!!!
Rytlock himself can carry on his shoulders the entire GW franchise + a dolyak with all the Anet devs up and on the same time prepare sandwiches for the charr cubs…

PS: let mordremoth fight be lead by Rytlock, thanks

As characters, I don’t like any of them other than Rox….And that has almost nothing to do with the fact that she is the only one of them who rezzed me when I was down.
Rox has so much potential to help show Charr culture. When gw2 was in the works, the devs talked a lot about how the Charr were one of the big icons of Guild Wars. So let us see this creature you have built as a cornerstone of the setting, more about the legions, more about Charr technology, family, ect. I want to see Rox’s new warband, I want to know if her dad is Rytlock?

The rest of this new group seems just too flat and cliché. You brought in Marjory’s sister just to have her die, and even that wasn’t enough to really cause character growth, or elicit empathy from myself, or my guild. After Orr, you kind of expect everyone to die, and at this point we would like you to just get on with it.

Arachnaas.2093:

As characters, I don’t like any of them other than Rox….And that has almost nothing to do with the fact that she is the only one of them who rezzed me when I was down.
Rox has so much potential to help show Charr culture. When gw2 was in the works, the devs talked a lot about how the Charr were one of the big icons of Guild Wars. So let us see this creature you have built as a cornerstone of the setting, more about the legions, more about Charr technology, family, ect. I want to see Rox’s new warband, I want to know if her dad is Rytlock?

The rest of this new group seems just too flat and cliché. You brought in Marjory’s sister just to have her die, and even that wasn’t enough to really cause character growth, or elicit empathy from myself, or my guild. After Orr, you kind of expect everyone to die, and at this point we would like you to just get on with it.

Rytlock and Rox are partial siblings, though I agree that she definitely has a lot of potential behind her (and it’s not just because I like the Charr). I’d be okay with the others leaving, but geez, killing them off is just cruel at this point in time.

If we’re thread necroing, lets do it full force!

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

If we were to go back in time, maybe the Iconics story would have been similiar. They had to be unknown ‘street-level’ nobodies once, didn’t they? Or were they just born world-renown adulated heroes? I don’t know, as I know little of their past history.

Yep. Rytlock and Logan tried to murder each other, then they found Caithe, got arrested, and started fighting in an arena to get free. Then Eir, Snaff, and Zojja beat the crap out of em in a bet with the arena owner.

Thanatos.2691:

Marjory’s sister dying was poorly done imo because her character had as much development as Antarctica. I think it would be interesting to see Braham sacrifice his life to save Taimi or Kasmeer forced to kill a corrupted Marjory.

On the latter, I agree, that would be far more interesting. On the former, you are wrong. Antarctica has up to 4.7km or so of ice. Belinda had a cash grab greatsword, and maybe 20-30 lines total. Way less development than Antarctica.

Spartacus.9743:

I think the only from the biconics that can give a sense of real cooperation, epicness and might is:
Rytlock Brimstone!!!!!!!!!!!

2 problems: 1) Rytlock is one of the Iconics, not the Biconics. 2) He’s kinda….misted….what with jumping after Sohothin and all.

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

If we were to go back in time, maybe the Iconics story would have been similiar. They had to be unknown ‘street-level’ nobodies once, didn’t they? Or were they just born world-renown adulated heroes? I don’t know, as I know little of their past history.

Yep. Rytlock and Logan tried to murder each other, then they found Caithe, got arrested, and started fighting in an arena to get free. Then Eir, Snaff, and Zojja beat the crap out of em in a bet with the arena owner.

The Iconics still did a much, much better job of representing their races, though. Logan is a guardian that venerates the Six Gods, and he has a fanatical (IMO unhealthy, but whatever) devotion to his Queen. Marjory and Kasmeer have none of that, as the only connection to human society they hold is a sort of contempt for the system of nobility.
Rytlock always embodied charr values, and he also occupies a rank that makes his actions and thoughts relevant to Charr society. Rox had previously been just a puppy dog hero-worshipping Rytlock, and that type of thing could happen regardless of her race. And now, she’s just a generic, punch-clock hero.
Eir set out to accomplish something legendary by fighting the Dragonspawn, then, upon failing, she sought redemption of both herself and her legend. Braham… has mommy issues and a terminal condition of falling perfectly into the dumb-muscle archetype.
Zojja… okay, so not all of the Iconics are all that compelling. But she did do a good job of representing her race, and her race’s ideals. Taimi… again, for a change, I actually like her. She still doesn’t tell us a whole lot about her race, but at least some of the time, she is an interesting character. Partially because she had the interesting motivation for awhile of learning about Scarlet, a subject that most people wouldn’t even touch, despite being a cute, innocent young girl.
That’s really the key to it, or at least part of it: The Biconics do not have purpose. They have some shallow, simple motivations that go no further than their own lives; Braham with his mommy issues, Kasmeer dealing with her crisis of social rank, Marjory needing to continue keeping up the noir facade which must be exhausting, and Rox and Taimi wanting to impress their respective mentors. BUT, they do not have strong, personal reasons to fight the dragons, or any particular group.

Thanatos.2691:

Marjory’s sister dying was poorly done imo because her character had as much development as Antarctica. I think it would be interesting to see Braham sacrifice his life to save Taimi or Kasmeer forced to kill a corrupted Marjory.

Although the examples given are pretty cliche’d (Nothing necessarily wrong with that, by the way), something like that would do wonders for giving the Biconics motivation. Think of how much more marching into battle would mean for Kasmeer if she’s marching against an entity that forced her into such a situation? For Taimi, if the dragons had taken the one person that truly cared for her away?
Not to mention, such things would make gaps in the ranks that might be filled by fresh, better-designed characters.