Guild Wars 2

Will we ever get a serious, mature, non-disney story without childishly cliche characters?
I’ve seen better fan fiction stories from 13 year old Twilight fan girls.

I mean, I have NOTHING against light hearted content now and then, but no LS so far have made me think to myself “Wow, this story is amazing!”.

What happened to dragons and all their evil minions?

Flame & Frost was pretty dark. I really miss Flame & Frost… more LS should be done that way

The SAB was super popular and loved by many players. Dont you talk bad about my SAB.

I’d personally rather have a villain or enemy that is pseudo relateable, vs. the “oooh we’re big and dark and scary because that’s just how the world works” That is the dragons.
Scarlet might fit that, if they continue with the backstory they posted for her. Or she might just be lame. I’m waiting to see.

As for this content… It’s 2 weeks of SAB. I’m willing to put the story on hold for 2 weeks for more jumping and fun themed content.

I mean, people want more SAB, so they have to find some time to release it. Now is as good a time as any. Serves as kind of a breather episode between major plot points.

I’m sure you can enjoy the SAB too, seeing how you like challenges!

SAB should be a mini game, not the actual LS update…

PERSONALLY I never liked SAB I played it once and never again, and I didn’t come to complain here about it, but that’s not the point.
I’m asking whether we will get anything remotely as mature as for example Mass Effect or Bioshock. – Story.

Looking back to GW1 – at least the story was coherently written with characters you could relate to, and the villains.

They’ve expressed interest in doing more significant, permanent content updates ¹, but from the tone of that response I get the feeling that their two-week release schedule is the problem. Their solution to the problem is to introduce more repeatable content like festivals and the SAB. By having this content, which is easy to build on, it frees up development resources for more significant stories, zones, dungeons, etc. At least that’s the hope.

I’d prefer they just focus on this type content for now so that they can craft better stories, dungeons, and zones later; than do what they’re currently doing. Presently their story advancing content is disjointed, unpolished, needs more time to develop, and needs more time to be properly integrated it into the world so it feels like doing these events impact the world.

¹ – http://dulfy.net/2013/08/05/gw2-colin-johanson-addresses-temporary-content-concerns/

codingCaptor.9428:

I’d personally rather have a villain or enemy that is pseudo relateable, vs. the “oooh we’re big and dark and scary because that’s just how the world works” That is the dragons.
Scarlet might fit that, if they continue with the backstory they posted for her. Or she might just be lame. I’m waiting to see.

As for this content… It’s 2 weeks of SAB. I’m willing to put the story on hold for 2 weeks for more jumping and fun themed content.

I mean, people want more SAB, so they have to find some time to release it. Now is as good a time as any. Serves as kind of a breather episode between major plot points.

I would argue that Ceara is the character in the story. Once she takes on the identity of Scarlet she seems to lose a lot of what makes Ceara an interesting character. Ceara is searching for something, Scarlet has seen the Eternal Alchemy. She isn’t searching for answers any more, she thinks she has found them and they appear to have made her crazy.

I think Clockwork Chaos should be the indicator for most people. That’s the level of story telling they want to put forward, that’s the type of characters and consequences they want to have. They set the bar. They could have killed a major character and raised the stakes, instead they killed some nameless NPCs. Whatever you think of Scarlet, it would appear she is the nemesis.

I think at this point, for your own sanity, it’s probably best to accept that the standard we’ve seen so far is where the Living Story is aiming at. Some people like it and are happy, some people are not (there are a lot of people who like Scarlet and the events happening in the Living Story). I doubt the Living Story will deviate much from we’ve seen so far.

I agree I want serious content, but not because I don’t like SAB. SAB is by far one of the best things Anet has given us. It’s just a shame we haven’t had really good, serious content alongside it.

I think it’s better to complain about serious content in the Living Story forum, as I personally think SAB should be excluded when it comes to conversations about the poor quality of the LS.

Nick.6972:

PERSONALLY I never liked SAB I played it once and never again, and I didn’t come to complain here about it, but that’s not the point.
I’m asking whether we will get anything remotely as mature as for example Mass Effect or Bioshock. – Story.

Looking back to GW1 – at least the story was coherently written with characters you could relate to, and the villains.

The GW1 story was complete though. And if we look at the parts of GW2 story that is complete, it also has about the same level of writing skill that Prohpecies or factions had. (The writing in Prophecies wasn’t very good, I’d like to remind you. The story was sound, but presentation was very lacking)

The living story stuff isn’t complete. We’re still really in the introductory stages, letting us see who our heros and our villains are. They’ve got time to go the places that you want them to go. There is still plenty of story to be told.

Also, if attempting to cook people alive isn’t dark enough for you, I’m not entirely sure what is.

Nick.6972:

I’m asking whether we will get anything remotely as mature as for example Mass Effect or Bioshock. – Story.

Not until they decided to let the ESRB up the game’s rating.

Nick.6972:

Will we ever get a serious, mature, non-disney story without childishly cliche characters?
I’ve seen better fan fiction stories from 13 year old Twilight fan girls.

I mean, I have NOTHING against light hearted content now and then, but no LS so far have made me think to myself “Wow, this story is amazing!”.

What happened to dragons and all their evil minions?

Dragons, their evil minions and serious living story content are waiting for China release, cuz thats where da moni iz nao! Once they release in China, I bet we’re gonna see some main story progress and dragons showing up.

Shiren.9532:

codingCaptor.9428:

I’d personally rather have a villain or enemy that is pseudo relateable, vs. the “oooh we’re big and dark and scary because that’s just how the world works” That is the dragons.
Scarlet might fit that, if they continue with the backstory they posted for her. Or she might just be lame. I’m waiting to see.

As for this content… It’s 2 weeks of SAB. I’m willing to put the story on hold for 2 weeks for more jumping and fun themed content.

I mean, people want more SAB, so they have to find some time to release it. Now is as good a time as any. Serves as kind of a breather episode between major plot points.

I would argue that Ceara is the character in the story. Once she takes on the identity of Scarlet she seems to lose a lot of what makes Ceara an interesting character. Ceara is searching for something, Scarlet has seen the Eternal Alchemy. She isn’t searching for answers any more, she thinks she has found them and they appear to have made her crazy.

I think Clockwork Chaos should be the indicator for most people. That’s the level of story telling they want to put forward, that’s the type of characters and consequences they want to have. They set the bar. They could have killed a major character and raised the stakes, instead they killed some nameless NPCs. Whatever you think of Scarlet, it would appear she is the nemesis.

I think at this point, for your own sanity, it’s probably best to accept that the standard we’ve seen so far is where the Living Story is aiming at. Some people like it and are happy, some people are not (there are a lot of people who like Scarlet and the events happening in the Living Story). I doubt the Living Story will deviate much from we’ve seen so far.

I would argue that NOT killing a major character was the smarter move to make at this point. Other than Lord Faren, there isn’t really a character in this group whom we’ve really had time to connect to and identify with. Killing Rox or Braham would have had about the same level as impact to me as killing those 10-20 random NPCs did. It’s… kind of pointless to do it now.

The “raise the stakes” moment was already had, an attempted assassination, introduction of a threat, an example of power. Murdering people on top of that? Kinda meh. I can see the sarcastic forum posts now, talking about Game of thrones and how A.Net only wishes they were that good at writing.

The living story is only starting. They’re thinking ahead to tell a long term kind of story, and I’m 100% okay with that. They could mess it up, and how they’ve handled Scarlet thus far worries me that they may not be up to the task (Or, more realistically, that they’re writing for the lowest common denominator, a SAFE story that will keep their players happy) But I’ve always been an optimist, and I’m willing to let them show us their cards before I tell them they’re bad at poker.

Nick.6972:

What happened to dragons and all their evil minions?

Still awaiting their destruction. We will get to them eventually.
The problem I have with folks just wanting to rush straight to the next dragon is this: If we just jumped Dragon to Dragon what do we kill after they are all dead?

We need to build up more “home” enemies. Flame and Frost gave us the Molten Alliance. That’s an okay start. Then the Aetherblades became the resident trololololo forces near Lion’s Arch and in Divinity’s Reach.

Scarlet is introduced and I’ll await more before I decide if I just don’t like her.

What about the Centaurs? The Hylek? Surely some of the lesser races have to be taking some opportunities to expand their influence while we constantly scream that we want to take on just the Dragons.

Nick.6972:

Will we ever get a serious, mature, non-disney story without childishly cliche characters?
I’ve seen better fan fiction stories from 13 year old Twilight fan girls.

I mean, I have NOTHING against light hearted content now and then, but no LS so far have made me think to myself “Wow, this story is amazing!”.

What happened to dragons and all their evil minions?

Totally agree. I’d like to see something similar to.. anything from GW1. Those stories were epic, developed.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

The SAB was super popular and loved by many players. Dont you talk bad about my SAB.

SAB is the most silly content for any fantasy themed MMORPG to date. If it is fun to you, great, but you should understand, there are a lot of serious fans of fantasy MMOs that just can’t stand it.

At least it gives us 2-4 weeks of achievement-grind free time. Nothing bad with that though

Not that long ago we were solving a murder mystery. When did murder mystery become a not dark genre? If your really looking for doom or bioshock level darkness be prepared to never be content because this game is not designed to be like that.

Gandarel.5091:

Totally agree. I’d like to see something similar to.. anything from GW1. Those stories were epic, developed.

Maybe I have a different memory of GW1 story, most of my memory is of the prophecies campaign, but that storyline was laughable. Every 5 missions your ally would betray you and you would stumble upon a new ally. I have never seen someone switch sides so many times as your character in gw1.

yep, i lost all hope in arenanet i doubt they will ever develop anything even remotely comparable to guild wars 1 in this game. about to just give up entirely on this game

luckily this year has tons of great games coming out

codingCaptor.9428:

Also, if attempting to cook people alive isn’t dark enough for you, I’m not entirely sure what is.

And yet, somehow, they managed to make it seem silly.

gaspara.4079:

Maybe I have a different memory of GW1 story, most of my memory is of the prophecies campaign, but that storyline was laughable. Every 5 missions your ally would betray you and you would stumble upon a new ally. I have never seen someone switch sides so many times as your character in gw1.

Agreed, when the Vizier shows up I kept thinking “When does the backstab happen?” (Time passes through missions) “Ohhhh okay there we go, now off to kill him.”