Guild Wars 2

The dialogue between the supporting characters makes me cringe. When no one says anything to Taimi, yet she blurts out, “Don’t beg me to go, I’m staying here.” I want to snap at her that no one was talking to her.

Or when rushing off to the defense of Fort Salma, Kasmeer quips, “I would love to get to know your sister better, Marjory.”

Wait, what? People are dying, the world is under attack by an Elder Dragon, and you’re casually chatting about how nice it would be to get closer to your girlfriend’s sister? Priorities, people!

Not only that, but the way the dialogue is being delivered seems out of context, almost as though the characters are having two different conversations. Emphasizing different words in a sentence can completely change the sentence’s meaning or change how the character and their motivations are perceived. When this happens, it seems as though the voice actors weren’t given the context in which their lines were to be used. Either that, or they were given context, but after the dialogue was recorded the context was changed. Either way, it’s frustrating to listen to because it doesn’t feel natural. It just pulls me right out of the scene.

One last thing: at what point did we finally make the discovery that Mordremoth was behind all the spiked roots popping up all over? I’m playing through Entanglement right now, and it just seems like we went from following Scarlet’s research trail to all of a sudden talking about how this is the work of Mordremoth. Did I completely miss the big dramatic reveal somewhere?

One of the writers for Anet admitted that the jump to accusing mordremoth and knowing his name all of a sudden was, well; a jump. I can quote him as saying “lesson learned”. I think it was bobby? Cant ’t remember.

As for the other stuff. Not everything is doom and gloom, if it were, it would be pretty depressing and a very monotonous story. When kasmeer said she wanted to get to know marjories sister, it was in a setting where they were safe, and they were under the impression that fort salma wasnt being obliterated, nor concordia. Also, she has a rather bubbly personality and she is pretty ditzy, and easily distracted, so its easy for her to put things so important somewhere else in exchange for some more bubbly. That kitten alcoholic!

Also considering taimi’s constant snark, and seeing as scarlet is her greatest hero, its not surprising she said what she said at the prospect of having to leave the very machine that created the persona that she admires so much. Also, considering her progeny status, and constant having to maneuver around the guardianship of rata sum, its no wonder she was a bit snappy at the hint of some one telling her to go do something she doesn’t want to do. she was the same way in living story season 1 when braham kept trying to take her back to rata sum.

Taimi: There you are. Got all the parts? Lemme hop onto Scruffy and make the finishing touches.
Taimi: Well, Councillor Phlunt, I’m sorry to report that I’ve completely wasted your time and the waypoints will now be destroyed by Mordremoth.
Councillor Phlunt: What?
Taimi: Just kidding. My patent-pending waypoint recalibration device is now complete.

I didn’t care about Taimi before, but this line made me jump into the Taimi ship.

runeblade.7514:

Taimi: There you are. Got all the parts? Lemme hop onto Scruffy and make the finishing touches.
Taimi: Well, Councillor Phlunt, I’m sorry to report that I’ve completely wasted your time and the waypoints will now be destroyed by Mordremoth.
Councillor Phlunt: What?
Taimi: Just kidding. My patent-pending waypoint recalibration device is now complete.

I didn’t care about Taimi before, but this line made me jump into the Taimi ship.

I was hoping she was serious. PLOT TWIST!

DougM, I have my own issues with the dialogue, mostly finding it a bit dry at times, but I have no issue with Kasmeer saying she’d like to get to know Marjory’s sister better during a time of dire impending circumstances.

It’s a very narrow POV to think that nobody should ever express a thought outside of their current situation regardless of it’s importance. There are many real world examples of people doing so. Surely you may have noticed some in your own real life. Certainly, historically, such thoughts were common…from the WWII soldier leaving in a day for an unknown mission with unknown consequences, from which he may not return, thinking he’d like to get to know that girl in the pub better. You get the picture.

Maybe Kas was thinking of the threesome, who knows. Point is, requiring characters in a story to only express thoughts of their main going concern is completely unrealistic, even from a game story telling POV.

I’ve been playing the living world chapters with a friend, and we can’t get over how badly delivered and illogical the dialogue is. As you’ve said OP the characters don’t seem to react properly to the situation, and the timing of the dialogue and emphasis of certain words doesn’t seem right. High level examples would be

• the encounter with the Sylvari leader (world tree mother or whatever her name is) who appears to know about the dragon, and yet never volunteered any information to anyone (despite world encompassing events occurring around her).

• Requiring to convene a summit of race leaders to convince them to commit forces to the effort when the Pact was already formed for the precise purpose of fighting the dragons whom the player is the commander of.

• Braham’s and Eir’s conversation where Eir at first says the Norn would not help because JORMAG, and then not 2 mouse clicks later decides that actually yes, two dragons are worse than one.

The first two episodes were bearable if cliche, but this particular one had the two of us in fits of laughter and disbelief for the most part.

nosleepdemon.1368:

• Requiring to convene a summit of race leaders to convince them to commit forces to the effort when the Pact was already formed for the precise purpose of fighting the dragons whom the player is the commander of.

I thought it was explained at some point that the Pact is stretched thin just dealing with the remainder of the Undead in Orr. Expecting them to keep that under control and take on another Elder Dragon who has the reach to be able to pop up almost anywhere seems difficult without more help. Getting the leaders together to ask for additional man power, at the very least, to back the Pact seems like a reasonable turn of events to me.

nosleepdemon.1368:

• the encounter with the Sylvari leader (world tree mother or whatever her name is) who appears to know about the dragon, and yet never volunteered any information to anyone (despite world encompassing events occurring around her).

The pale tree was acting like that because she is a big fat liar full of secrets and more lies.
Everyone knows that she knows more than anyone else about the whole dragons situation, especially with mordremoth. She just wont tell anyone because its prolly something that we all really don’t want to hear, or shouldn’t hear.

I’m gonna rage if she doesn’t tell us during the summit…