Guild Wars 2

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Fext.3614:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . it’s not like the Elminster thing, because that was highly dependent on how your resident GM handled that. Which is often poorly. D&D was one of those times where you were not limited by what the writers were putting in place, you could do what you wanted.

Still, people hated him with passion. I never dmastered anything set in FR, and neither played iirc. Yet I somehow KNEW Elminster sucks. Might be the same mechanism behind him being so annoying – that he was a personal pet of one of the writers…

We’re gonna have a problem.

See, let’s agree people hated him with a passion. People hate Drizzt Do’Urden with a passion. People hate Bilbo Baggins with a passion. The problem is always cited as the same: “poorly written”, without further explanation. That’s a problem because it means there’s no way to actually refute the assertion, since there’s no substance to the complaint.

Saying “Bilbo Baggins is poorly written, because he spends most of the book doing nothing but making trouble for the rest of the dwarves until suddenly in the third act he starts becoming useful to the point of making the dwarves look useless” is something which can be argued against, or discussed.

Saying “Kasmeer and Marjory are poorly written and should exit stage left out of the story ASAP” . . . doesn’t give anything to discuss.

(And by the way, Ed Greenwood personal pet NPC was not Elminster. It was Mirt the Moneylender.)

I don’t say I hated Elminster. I did not give a skritt about him because it was easy to avoid him – and this is my point. But here I want to play the game, which I like, but I just MUST interact with the NPCs which I hate if I do not want to miss significant parts of the game.

Concerning the “poorly written” matter: you obviously mix the story and the narration. Bilbo in you example has a good story, a story about a lazy hedonist who discovers himself under pressure. This is a good story, and with a good moral. But this story can be written several different ways. Depending on the skill of the storyteller.

Staying with your example, the way Tolkien wrote the book is brilliant. I love Hobbit way more than LOTR or Silmarilion. I enjoyed every sentence of the book because Tolkien was such a playfull narrator.

The way Jackson and company did the movie is far from brilliant. I was on the first movie in cinema, watched the other at home, and I do not really care about seeing the third one. But, fortunately, I do not have to care about it.

I think that the plot behind the LS2 is OK. The lesbian duo is OK. The selection of the other characters is pretty standard for the game, mostly dominant females with one male, who is properly harmless and tamed. But I can live with that, since I lived with that during the whole Crest of Stars series and I was having fun.

What I can’t stand is the way the characters speak and behave. And it is pretty legal by all standards to say that, since I do not have to go through the every line they say, proving what was wrong. Most of the dialogues, cinematics and cutscenes around A-iconics and B-iconics is just a royal pain in the kitten for me and not only for me. Because of the level of cliche and flatness of the characters. You can easily guess what they do and say in advance.

It is not the media or mature rating. It’s just the writing. Nothing else. If a routine Harlequin writer makes a book on Midsummer Night’s Dream plot, it will be as kittenty as the rest of the Harlequin books, maybe even worse.

Better remove Trahearne

This is your personal opinion fext. In my opinion Marjory and Kasmeer are great and i really like them, thy add flavor to the story, they are not perfect and have a lot of flaws. This alone make them good characters. In my opinion Anet should continue the creation of flawed characters.

I don’t know if you ever played the witcher 2 but how many people hated roche due to his nature, iv’e seen him as a brilliant character.

I see the living world season 2 as a way to touch a somewhat darker fantasy setting. destiny’s edge 2 are a good first step in this interesting road.

Rhinala.1739:

I don’t know if you ever played the witcher 2 but how many people hated roche due to his nature, iv’e seen him as a brilliant character.

I see the living world season 2 as a way to touch a somewhat darker fantasy setting. destiny’s edge 2 are a good first step in this interesting road.

Oh ouch. I don’t hate Marjory or Kasmeer, but mentioning Witcher characters and GW2 characters together seems wrong.

GW2’s characters are flatter than my man boobs.

Marjory and Kasmeer are annoying as hell. I don’t care if they somewhat vanish in the upcoming story – I would welcome it. These two are acting like 2 girls on a party with bad guests, but not as warriors in a world that is threated by elder dragon forces. Their voices are annoying. Their acting is annoying. Their deeds are annoying. They don’t act like reasonable grown up people but like teens in their puberty. Nobody with the slightest instinct of self preservation would take them on a fight that leads to an elder dragon.
It doesn’t fit. If they were in a party with me, I would vote to kick them, because they don’t contribute. They stand aside and are simply annoying. It would be the first kick in my whole GW2 time since release.

They have no depth. They are designed with depth (Belinda, and the history of Kasmeer), but on a green table. It doesn’t grab me, because it feels artificial and not natural.

I don’t like them. And it’s not because they are designed to be disliked like a villain, it’s because their design is annoying. They are misplaced in the story.

Ok, enough rant.

Silmar Alech.4305:

Marjory and Kasmeer are annoying as hell. I don’t care if they somewhat vanish in the upcoming story – I would welcome it. These two are acting like 2 girls on a party with bad guests, but not as warriors in a world that is threated by elder dragon forces. Their voices are annoying. Their acting is annoying. Their deeds are annoying. They don’t act like reasonable grown up people but like teens in their puberty. Nobody with the slightest instinct of self preservation would take them on a fight that leads to an elder dragon.
It doesn’t fit. If they were in a party with me, I would vote to kick them, because they don’t contribute. They stand aside and are simply annoying. It would be the first kick in my whole GW2 time since release.

They have no depth. They are designed with depth (Belinda, and the history of Kasmeer), but on a green table. It doesn’t grab me, because it feels artificial and not natural.

I don’t like them. And it’s not because they are designed to be disliked like a villain, it’s because their design is annoying. They are misplaced in the story.

Ok, enough rant.

Cause they’re not warriors?

Kasmeer until recently was a noble who got stripped of her rank due to something her father did. She took a job with Margery’s detective agency in Divinity’s Reach.

These aren’t battle-hardened soldiers. They were pulled into events over their head, and they’re feeling their way ever since.

What makes you think they should act like warriors? Hell Marjorie is a member of the priory and many priory NPCs act like scholars rather than warriors.

Oh my god! Kasmeer was stripped of her rank! I couldn’t care less.

I meant the term “warrior” as a general description of someone who joins the team to take up the fight against the powers that threaten the world. I’m still missing much vocabulary, so I wasn’t able to find a more fitting word. For example, Taimi is no warrior-class either, but she absolutely has a place in the team.

Bubi.7942:

Oh ouch. I don’t hate Marjory or Kasmeer, but mentioning Witcher characters and GW2 characters together seems wrong.

GW2’s characters are flatter than my man boobs.

I know what you mean I used this comparison as a way to show that If the NPC have the ability to trigger this much hatred then something right was done there (bad writing is a poor excuse).
MMO NPC’s are mostly flat and uninteresting, but for me at least it seems like Anet is trying to work on that issue. i see those characters as a first baby step toward better NPC design. living story trahearne is a lot less annoying then personal story trahearne.

Rhinala.1739:

I don’t know if you ever played the witcher 2 but how many people hated roche due to his nature, iv’e seen him as a brilliant character.

Please, do not compare Witcher 2 (and 1) writing with GW2 living story. Witcher is absolutely different level, it even beats the golden age of Bioware (stuff about as good as the Viconia romance in BG2, and that was some excellent writing). I loved every single character and dialogue in Witcher, no matter if good or evil. Because they were brilliantly written, at the quality level of the original novel series upon which it is based, and the same praise goes to the plot. Roche was a perfect character.

Rhinala.1739:

MMO NPC’s are mostly flat and uninteresting

Nonsense. Try TSW for a good story and NPCs.
You simply cannot vivisect a ghoul without breaking a few bones…

Fext.3614:

I don’t say I hated Elminster. I did not give a skritt about him because it was easy to avoid him – and this is my point. But here I want to play the game, which I like, but I just MUST interact with the NPCs which I hate if I do not want to miss significant parts of the game.

I didn’t say you did either. Read more carefully. I’ve had at least two experiences where the FR NPCs couldn’t be avoided and you had to work through them.

Concerning the “poorly written” matter: you obviously mix the story and the narration.

Do you want to admit to mixing up the story and characters yourself? Kasmeer Meade and Marjory Delaqua are not the story, they are characters. They, themselves, aren’t poorly written – but they are poorly handled.

(Also, your comparison of the Middle Earth properties shows you probably didn’t understand them or the characters there, either.)

I think that the plot behind the LS2 is OK. The lesbian duo is OK. The selection of the other characters is pretty standard for the game, mostly dominant females with one male, who is properly harmless and tamed. But I can live with that, since I lived with that during the whole Crest of Stars series and I was having fun.

This is what I was talking about earlier – you’re not coming off as having a problem with these two characters because of how they’re written or how the story works. You’re coming off as having a problem with them because of what you protest you’re not. The way you’re writing your pleas about what you really have a problem with just seem to highlight your thought patterns and show where your problem really lies.

Whether or not it’s true is another matter.

What I can’t stand is the way the characters speak and behave. And it is pretty legal by all standards to say that, since I do not have to go through the every line they say, proving what was wrong. Most of the dialogues, cinematics and cutscenes around A-iconics and B-iconics is just a royal pain in the kitten for me and not only for me. Because of the level of cliche and flatness of the characters. You can easily guess what they do and say in advance.

. . . did you play Guild Wars 1? Because it was just plain worse there as far as how it was predictable and forced you to deal with painful acting. If you think Marjory and Kasmeer are terrible and need to be removed, you should go back and introduce yourself to Prince Rurik. Or Master Togo. Or Tahlkora.

It is not the media or mature rating. It’s just the writing. Nothing else. If a routine Harlequin writer makes a book on Midsummer Night’s Dream plot, it will be as kittenty as the rest of the Harlequin books, maybe even worse.

Yeah, Shakespeare’s play writing wasn’t all that untouchably awesome, my friend. It had loads of problems with characterization and plot, and was at the time a good example of popcorn theatre. (That is to say, the Michael Bay of Victorian theatre. Really good at being entertaining, not known so much for highbrow and being thought-provoking.) Why it got to the level of sacred cow these days is beyond me.

. . . his sonnets, on the other hand . . . different tale.

I just don’t understand why some of these characters are there? I understand why our character is there. We are the commander (are we the commander?…lol, somewhat forgot, I know our character is the lead).

Why are they following us around? They keep on call us “BOSS”. I feel like we are playing house with little kid and I am somehow the boss that gets to order them around.

I mean, don’t we not have real train soldiers to command around than a team of random people that just somehow there and follow us around? Somehow they are way more well train than anyone in these packs or soldiers around the world and can take on big boss with us.

I do not dislike them, just write them better if anet really want to build upon them. Whatever happen to Delaqua and Meade being detectives?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

This is what I was talking about earlier – you’re not coming off as having a problem with these two characters because of how they’re written or how the story works. You’re coming off as having a problem with them because of what you protest you’re not. The way you’re writing your pleas about what you really have a problem with just seem to highlight your thought patterns and show where your problem really lies.

Whether or not it’s true is another matter.

…

Yeah, Shakespeare’s play writing wasn’t all that untouchably awesome, my friend. It had loads of problems with characterization and plot, and was at the time a good example of popcorn theatre. (That is to say, the Michael Bay of Victorian theatre. Really good at being entertaining, not known so much for highbrow and being thought-provoking.) Why it got to the level of sacred cow these days is beyond me.

. . . his sonnets, on the other hand . . . different tale.

Looks like I simply MUST be a homopohobe because I dare to criticise our angelic lesbian duo. It’s unescapable. The more I deny it in anticipation of getting the homophobic label, the more sticky the label becomes… reminds me Catch 22.

Concerning Shakespeare, very briefly, since I do not want to diverge that much from the homophobic hatemongering I enjoy so much: he had to feed his troupe and did an outstanding job even at the pieces where he obviously aimed to simply please his audience – and make money. Thats what makes him a great writer.

Gilgamesh.1025:

I just don’t understand why some of these characters are there? I understand why our character is there. We are the commander (are we the commander?…lol, somewhat forgot, I know our character is the lead).

Well I think that the only and really reason is that Marjory is a personal projection of one of the writers. Which answers the second question: Marjory is the real hero and the mastermind of the story and our characters are just her sidekicks.

i vote we remove the player character from all future story content. problem solved.

Bubi.7942:

kylwilson.9137:

Congratulations! #golf clap You have just described literally every single relationship (hetero or homosexual) in the history of the universe! “Love” goes hand in hand with ‘dependency and possession’. The only thing is you somehow equate this to ‘abuse’? Has this to do with lack of experience with relationships? I don’t know, that’s not for here.

Uhm… maybe in the world of S&M yes, but otherwise not really. “Dependency and posession” do not make for a healthy relationship tbh.

INB4 this gets closed.

But what is a relationship without dependency? or Possession?
If my wife isn’t mine, then what kind of relationship do I have with her? If I am not her man, what than? If she can’t depend on me for strength, insight, protection, etc. and I can’t depend on her for strength, comfort, wisdom, and a swift kick in the backside when I need it, what kind of relationship do we even have?

None.
At best we are friends and nothing more.
No. A “romantic” relationship is based on mutual possession, and mutual dependancy. Each party supplying what the other needs. It’s best described as an intimate partnership. We are both equals in the relationship, and no one is dominate of the other.

As far as Meade and Delaqua, we see just that. A mutual respect, dependency, and a mutual possession. It may not be the best written relationship, but it does contain the main elements of any romantic relationship, homosexual or otherwise.

Fext.3614:

Looks like I simply MUST be a homopohobe because I dare to criticise our angelic lesbian duo. It’s unescapable. The more I deny it in anticipation of getting the homophobic label, the more sticky the label becomes… reminds me Catch 22.

. . . methinks you doth protest too much.

I also think you’re completely reading too much into what I said. I didn’t call you such, and I didn’t push it on you. I commented what it looks like and commenting you keep digging it deeper.

Your choice of wording, continuing to use the words “lesbian duo” when you don’t need to, pretty much is why I keep pointing it out. You don’t need to use those labels, but you do.

That’s why it comes off as you having some other axe to grind. And the fact you aren’t bothering to come up with a good set of reasons they’re unlikable . . . and just keep repeating you don’t like them . . . and that they’re lesbians. . .

You’re not looking good. Stop, take a breath, and figure out something with substance.

I actually really like those two characters o.O. When you think about how kittenty a place tyria is to live seeing those two interact is actually kind of nice.

I wonder if the OP is covertly complaining that Majory and Kasmeer are not a “traditional” couple?

—edit — I for one would love to be present at their wedding celebration. This is the 21rst Century.

They are pillars of the story line and in my opinion very well written. I’m hoping to be present when Kasmeer is officially welcomed back into the nobility.

Silmar Alech.4305:

Oh my god! Kasmeer was stripped of her rank! I couldn’t care less.

I meant the term “warrior” as a general description of someone who joins the team to take up the fight against the powers that threaten the world. I’m still missing much vocabulary, so I wasn’t able to find a more fitting word. For example, Taimi is no warrior-class either, but she absolutely has a place in the team.

Sure the problem is you expect these people to behave in a way that’s not realistic. A noble who has no real experience adventuring suddenly has adventuring thrust upon her. She’s not Conan. She’s not Rambo. She’s a mesmer who wants to do something to help, but she’s not experienced in any way shape or form.

Your character has been fighting Zhaitan for a long time. The people you’re with…not so much. Expecting them to act like soldiers would be like expecting Bilbo in the Hobbit to act like a soldier. Or Merry and Pippin from Lotro. They’re not soldiers so they didn’t act like soldiers.

If you speak of a noble, then I’d prefer Faren to accompany us instead of Kasmeer and Majory. Really. He is totally useless, but his comic-like character is believable as the total anti-hero and pretender. K&M are not believable.

If you compare our NPCs with the companions in Lotr, these did know what they were in. They were selfless right from the start. The Bilbo role was chosen for our mentor in the personal story, but this was not a good move either.
K&M as Merry and Pippin – not far fetched, but they’re lacking depth. Merry and Pippin were not acting like silly childs or teens like K&M. But they acted like soldiers: Merry went to battle with Theoden and Eowyn and slew a Nazgul, Pippin went with Gandalf to the battle at the Black Gate, knowing they could not win. How strong they grew you see in the aftermath where they rescue the shire.
And the most important thing: they survived. With wounds. Not simply discarded as dead at some point.

If you compare K&M with them, then it’s time they grew up and get serious.

Vayne.8563:

Sure the problem is you expect these people to behave in a way that’s not realistic. A noble who has no real experience adventuring suddenly has adventuring thrust upon her. She’s not Conan. She’s not Rambo. She’s a mesmer who wants to do something to help, but she’s not experienced in any way shape or form.

Your character has been fighting Zhaitan for a long time. The people you’re with…not so much. Expecting them to act like soldiers would be like expecting Bilbo in the Hobbit to act like a soldier. Or Merry and Pippin from Lotro. They’re not soldiers so they didn’t act like soldiers.

Your statement is too logical, in many games a princess without any training and experience become an expert in weapons, combat and camouflage but in the living world s2 Anet is trying to create characters that make mistakes have flaws and mess up from time to time, they are not perfect but it is a good step in the right direction.

Fext.3614:

Nonsense. Try TSW for a good story and NPCs.
You simply cannot vivisect a ghoul without breaking a few bones…

I see that you agree with me here, i said that MMO NPC’s are MOSTLY flat and uninteresting, TSW might be the exception here. I never played it therefore i can’t comment on that game.

I constantly stated that i see Kasmeer Meade and Marjory Delaqua and the rest of their team as a good step in the right direction, in creating flawed NPC.
From what i gather heart of thorns characters and interaction feels a lot better.
Anet used the living story as a testing ground and i think it is a very nice one.

I find myself liking K&M very much and wanting to protect K. They are well written and compelling characters.

It seems apparent that homophobia is a central issue here.

Silmar Alech.4305:

If you speak of a noble, then I’d prefer Faren to accompany us instead of Kasmeer and Majory. Really. He is totally useless, but his comic-like character is believable as the total anti-hero and pretender. K&M are not believable.

If you compare our NPCs with the companions in Lotr, these did know what they were in. They were selfless right from the start. The Bilbo role was chosen for our mentor in the personal story, but this was not a good move either.
K&M as Merry and Pippin – not far fetched, but they’re lacking depth. Merry and Pippin were not acting like silly childs or teens like K&M. But they acted like soldiers: Merry went to battle with Theoden and Eowyn and slew a Nazgul, Pippin went with Gandalf to the battle at the Black Gate, knowing they could not win. How strong they grew you see in the aftermath where they rescue the shire.
And the most important thing: they survived. With wounds. Not simply discarded as dead at some point.

If you compare K&M with them, then it’s time they grew up and get serious.

Merry and Pippin acted like soldiers at the end of book three after a hell of a lot of action. There were a couple of thousand pages where they didn’t act like soldiers.

As for believable, I don’t know. They’re supposed to be some sort of stereotype more or less. In the time we have to learn about them, they are exactly what they are supposed to be.

It’s like Doc Savages aids in Doc Savage (though you may have never read it). They’re not meant to be fully fleshed out main characters.

Hell, Robin in Batman wasn’t exactly a greatly fleshed out character either. They’re side kicks.

And whether they’re believable or not is strictly a matter of opinion. I don’t obviously have any trouble believing them.

Well, my opinion of this topic is a two sided sword.

In Season 1, I quite liked Kasmeer and Marjory because their introduction and romantic buildup was playful, engaging, plot heavy and had a believable transition if you paid attention to all their idle dialogue in the open world.
They built on each other and off each other well, with a lot of their narrative directed at the idea of grasping their partnership and their working together.
However, this started to go wrong when Season 2 happened. After the kissing scene at the end of Season 1 which I actually didn’t mind they more or less reduced the role of Jory and Kas to “glorified lesbians on steroids”.

The problem we had was that in the original take of Season 1, Jory, was meant to die.

Mordremoths name was first mentioned in unused dialogue That_Shaman kindly provides us that would have taken a much more darker twist on the ending with Jory actually staying dead as opposed to surviving her ‘death’.

As much as I feel like this particular moment of Jory surviving was great and all, in retrospect I look back and feel like it would have worked better to have that level of tragedy where Kasmeer was ripped from Jory in a tragic moment of disaster.

Instead we had Belinda to replace Jory who first appeared during the toxic alliance storyline but only had an acting cameo in season 1’s ending then had 2 minor bits in season 2.

The problem with Belinda’s role in this was that she was basically a back-story character with no development vs Jory who we had known ever since the Aetherblade investigation.

Jory unfortunately lost her mojo in Season 2, she was strong in Season 1 because she was quirky, flirty, playful but very independent with or without Kasmeer around.

Instead she just became a glorified lesbian in Season 2 who’s only role was to be close to Kasmeer, and to cry when her sister died.

After that she more or less vanishes and while she does play “A” part in the glint storyline and the seeds storyline she doesn’t really do anything other than serve as a side narrator.

The problem is that Jory doesn’t get char growth, and Kasmeer in contrast got quite a bit in Season 2, but also didn’t because a lot of it happened off stage, the same with Jory.

This made their chars feel weak.

Over all, do I think removing them would fix this? Not really but I do think they need to retire after HoT for a while so we can put other chars at the forefront of storyline.

I think a-nets problem is they dont take enough risks with their main characters while side chars are treated like minor chars with no growth (master of peace/belinda) and that feels like their being put there for the sake of filling a role that, in the end, putting jory/kasmeer in would have worked just as well.

I think A-net needs to take more “risks” with their chars, and let chars that are major die, or suffer terribly, even turn into villains, temporarily or permanently, or become redeemed and join the heroic team but in a believable translation rather than a sudden one.

Vayne.8563:

It’s like Doc Savages aids in Doc Savage (though you may have never read it). They’re not meant to be fully fleshed out main characters.

Your age is showing, Vayne. I think I only know of those books because they were packed away in the attic and I had to go through it once to prepare for moving.

Hell, Robin in Batman wasn’t exactly a greatly fleshed out character either. They’re side kicks.

Bad choice of example. Robin is a legacy character who has several different identities, and each person who had the name is/was different. Especially D. Grayson (it will censor the first name) . . . he had an arc, and development. J. Todd did as well. A little less certain about T. Drake.

Even Jimmy Olsen got to be fleshed out eventually, rather than just some semi-sidekick.

. . . no, you’re probably thinking more of Sheldon Cooper.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Well, my opinion of this topic is a two sided sword.

Jory unfortunately lost her mojo in Season 2, she was strong in Season 1 because she was quirky, flirty, playful but very independent with or without Kasmeer around.

Instead she just became a glorified lesbian in Season 2 who’s only role was to be close to Kasmeer, and to cry when her sister died.

After that she more or less vanishes and while she does play “A” part in the glint storyline and the seeds storyline she doesn’t really do anything other than serve as a side narrator.

I haven’t played season 1 therefore i don’t know the difference in the char development.

i haven’t seen the glorified lesbians ,iv’e seen a couple who care about each other and trying to do the right thing. kasemeer role was crucial at the first chapter of season 2. jorry done a lot in almost every chapter she was in, even as a cannon fodder that steal aggro from the player character. i loved their conversation at glint lair, if you don’t teleport at the moment the teleporter is active you can hear them talking about destiny edge and glint.

I liked when jory cried at the time she seen her dead sister, it gave it an actual feeling of grief, she wasn’t acting all strong and heroin, she was among friends and she let herself crack.
I think i would do the same if my brother would die in a brutal way.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

I think A-net needs to take more “risks” with their chars, and let chars that are major die, or suffer terribly, even turn into villains, temporarily or permanently, or become redeemed and join the heroic team but in a believable translation rather than a sudden one.

Anet took a risk similar to the one you mentioned ,caithe stole glint’s egg, was ignorant to the master of peace death and acted like a plain bandit, asking for a leap of faith at the end of the finale chapter.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vayne.8563:

It’s like Doc Savages aids in Doc Savage (though you may have never read it). They’re not meant to be fully fleshed out main characters.

Your age is showing, Vayne. I think I only know of those books because they were packed away in the attic and I had to go through it once to prepare for moving.

Hell, Robin in Batman wasn’t exactly a greatly fleshed out character either. They’re side kicks.

Bad choice of example. Robin is a legacy character who has several different identities, and each person who had the name is/was different. Especially D. Grayson (it will censor the first name) . . . he had an arc, and development. J. Todd did as well. A little less certain about T. Drake.

Even Jimmy Olsen got to be fleshed out eventually, rather than just some semi-sidekick.

. . . no, you’re probably thinking more of Sheldon Cooper.

Eventually is the key word here. And you know, there are new Doc Savage books out. Just saying. (They’re quite awful though lol).

Vayne.8563:

Eventually is the key word here. And you know, there are new Doc Savage books out. Just saying. (They’re quite awful though lol).

Is this like how about ten to twenty years ago there was new Johnny Quest?

Also, will note if you’re talking Silver Age comics about Robin? You’re not supposed to discuss the Silver Age It was, frankly, the goofiest time for comic books and continuity barely existed at all. Still terrible examples by which to base your writing unless it’s something like a newspaper comic (Blondie, Fox Trot, Garfield, Family Circle, Bloom County…).

Anyway, the funny thing is how you did have more to Kasmeer (the “bubbly blonde”) than Marjory (“tall dark and snarky”) through most of season 1 developing her. Season 2 had a small handful but instead of doing anything with the characters, it dealt a lot more with trying to move ahead and assuming the characters were fine and already handled enough.

. . . not a good assumption.

Kasmeer has probably the best arc of all the characters we have as companions. She went from sheltered Nobility, to penniless sunbather, to part time investigator, her Mesmer powers detected the Tower of Nightmares (which she and Marjory were inside for a very long time and it still affects them), to falling for Marjory and finally going mad with rage and being the only person with us to rush and kill Scarlet at the end. She has her political past which links her to Anise and the group of powerful Mesmers in the heart of human society. She had to deal with being the partner of a strong person knocked hard by grief (even though Belinda was clearly introduced with ‘DEAD’ carved into her forehead).

Kasmeer is a nervous character who is unsecure in her place in the world because she lost it all once – she’s a pretty compelling character. It might just be Mesmer bias but she’s the person I most enjoy questing with because I feel she’s grown with us.

Coulter.2315:

Kasmeer has probably the best arc of all the characters we have as companions. She went from sheltered Nobility, to penniless sunbather, to part time investigator, her Mesmer powers detected the Tower of Nightmares (which she and Marjory were inside for a very long time and it still affects them), to falling for Marjory and finally going mad with rage and being the only person with us to rush and kill Scarlet at the end. She has her political past which links her to Anise and the group of powerful Mesmers in the heart of human society. She had to deal with being the partner of a strong person knocked hard by grief (even though Belinda was clearly introduced with ‘DEAD’ carved into her forehead).

Kasmeer is a nervous character who is unsecure in her place in the world because she lost it all once – she’s a pretty compelling character. It might just be Mesmer bias but she’s the person I most enjoy questing with because I feel she’s grown with us.

I feel like as a whole, Kasmeer would have been more enjoyable if she had a temperament that was more like Cynn’s.

For those not familiar:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Cynn

Having a partly bratty character develop more humble habits would be both more realistic and entertaining to watch. In addition to this, she would then clash a little with Taimi which would be great to see, imagine the dialogue possibilities.

Unless they’re still saving Cynn’s trope for another future character. I miss that bitter girl.

I’ll preface this by saying that I’m not really a fan of the overall narrative quality of GW2 (development, pacing, use of source material, character utilization, etc), so that is what it is. But my only gripes with Marjory and Kasmeer center around their dialogue and voice acting. As concepts, I think they’re fine. But Marjory has—almost literally—one tone of voice, with one inflection, for every situation, everywhere, all the time. It’s so hammy and overdone, like she’s reflecting from a bar stool and narrating some past series of events in an old detective novel (which was fine when she was introduced, but loses luster once it becomes apparent that she has no other range of expression). I can’t even listen to her anymore. I’ve sometimes muted the game on my headset and just read the dialogue in the chat box; it reads better than it’s acted.

Kasmeer’s, for me, is a slightly different case. It’s not so much that I would call most of her voice acting bad… It’s just…it sounds like it came straight out of one of those Disney-but-not-Disney-movies you see on Netflix, you know? “Snow Queen” or “The Thief and the Cobbler”. I mostly chalk that up to personal taste. It’s all right, but it’s not my thing. No beef there. But sometimes her dialogue itself really, really irks me. Example: Mystery Cave. You reach the bottom of the cave, and rather than just give you the memory seed proximity bar and let you progress the story in the solemn dignity imposed by the discovery of this massive golden cavern, Tutorialmeer has to chime in with something like, “Do you think this is the place to plant the final memory seed? What’s your intuition telling you?” Ultra-thinly veiled translation: This is the place. Look for that proximity bar you probably already noticed.

Or in Glint’s lair, where Marjory and Kasmeer present the Wiki page on Glint as exposition, which could’ve been fine if it had been written better, absorbed better into the narrative in progress. Let us find some objects or something, interact with something, make it feel more natural than Kasmeer asking these stupidly blatant leading questions to give Marjory narrative license to spew exposition in her one emotion.

It’s things like this that bother me. Not the characters as concepts, but the characters in practice, through voice acting and just…bad or otherwise obtuse writing.

Notice how I didn’t mention sexuality in there at all?

kylwilson.9137:

Coulter.2315:

Kasmeer has probably the best arc of all the characters we have as companions. She went from sheltered Nobility, to penniless sunbather, to part time investigator, her Mesmer powers detected the Tower of Nightmares (which she and Marjory were inside for a very long time and it still affects them), to falling for Marjory and finally going mad with rage and being the only person with us to rush and kill Scarlet at the end. She has her political past which links her to Anise and the group of powerful Mesmers in the heart of human society. She had to deal with being the partner of a strong person knocked hard by grief (even though Belinda was clearly introduced with ‘DEAD’ carved into her forehead).

Kasmeer is a nervous character who is unsecure in her place in the world because she lost it all once – she’s a pretty compelling character. It might just be Mesmer bias but she’s the person I most enjoy questing with because I feel she’s grown with us.

I feel like as a whole, Kasmeer would have been more enjoyable if she had a temperament that was more like Cynn’s.

For those not familiar:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Cynn

Having a partly bratty character develop more humble habits would be both more realistic and entertaining to watch. In addition to this, she would then clash a little with Taimi which would be great to see, imagine the dialogue possibilities.

Unless they’re still saving Cynn’s trope for another future character. I miss that bitter girl.

As much as I enjoy a girl who lives for burning Charr they are very different people – Cynn was traumatised as a kid, Kasmeer doesn’t have that much hatred in her.

Coulter, crawlerxp – as I see it now, my biggest fault in this whole thread was that I overcomplicated things, in most cases because of anticipation of the “burn the homophobe” attack.

But it is just so very simple. The typical quality of writting in the whole living story is at high school level. Just pick up your typical overweight high school dungeon master, who is dreaming about her first real life romance, ask her to write a story with a romantic plot, and she will end with something like that.

The only problem we have is that we got used to this level of “quality” and we seriously discuss it as if it deserved any detailed discussion.

My breaking point was few days ago when I had to suffer through the Party politics to make it to Calibrating waypoints since I needed the ley line dust.

To make the story short, I’m spending the time till Witcher 3 with a Lumie personal story in TSW which is top tier writing, and if it is not enough I might try ME2 or 3. I’m done with this game since I just can not suffer any more of this stuff. You can run into a good dialogue in GW2 but very seldom. The gameplay beats most of the other games in industry but this is totally spoiled by the writers.
Have fun guys. I will.

I think I stopped expecting awesome stories in my games somewhere around both Xenosaga and Metal Gear Solid 2. I’m really happy when they show up (FF12, Digital Devil Saga, SMT: Nocturne) but it stopped being something I want to force them to keep striving for.

Because it’s so . . . so. . . painful when they reach for it and fumble at the beginning (FF10) or the end (Destiny).

I’ll admit that I never really played Guild Wars 1. In fact, I’d never heard of it until Guild Wars 2 launched. But I started playing this game after reading up on the lore and feeling like it had promise. I keep playing it now because I legitimately enjoy the gameplay. The story itself, I leaned away from that somewhere during the middle of the personal story, and I gave up on it entirely after the Zhaitan ‘fight’, which is, to this day, absolutely the worst and least satisfying end-boss encounter I’ve ever played through. And I mean that literally. Literally, the worst.

But I enjoy the combat, and so I keep playing. And I enjoy the lore, so I keep playing through the story so that I can reflect on it later in my head. Strangely, it plays out better that way than when I’m actually playing through it. My mind removes the dialogue and thinks about the events, which serve only to extend the lore I enjoy.

Marjory and Kasmeer? Could do without. In fact, pretty much our whole little troupe. I get that a lot of people like them, but there was a post in another subforum regarding the fact that, if you remove them all, not a single thing changes about the overall plot. They’re entirely pointless outside of their own self-serving ministories. I’m siding with the people who wish we’d been given a Zephyrite in our party, or a sylvari, or anyone with any real connection to the issues at hand. I don’t really care for any of our party. None of them are expanded upon or written well enough, in personality, story, or dialogue, to justify even being there, more often than not.

Fext.3614:

Coulter, crawlerxp – as I see it now, my biggest fault in this whole thread was that I overcomplicated things, in most cases because of anticipation of the “burn the homophobe” attack.

But it is just so very simple. The typical quality of writting in the whole living story is at high school level. Just pick up your typical overweight high school dungeon master, who is dreaming about her first real life romance, ask her to write a story with a romantic plot, and she will end with something like that.

“Overcomplicates” things with homophobia (and “abuse” – you forgot your whole digression about abuse)… backtracks by insulting high school dungeon masters (who are, of course, typically overweight and never involved in real life romances).

At least if Anet ever needs to write a character who constantly puts their foot in it, they know who to ask.

Olvendred.3027:

“Overcomplicates” things with homophobia (and “abuse” – you forgot your whole digression about abuse)… backtracks by insulting high school dungeon masters (who are, of course, typically overweight and never involved in real life romances).

At least if Anet ever needs to write a character who constantly puts their foot in it, they know who to ask.

Well I’m not going argue. Just, if you are really interested in understanding my point (which is not the cause, but nevertheless), just iunstal The Secret World – IIRC it is now ftp or something – roll any character and play, say, at least to the end of Kingsmouth, going through every dialogue you can.

Why do you want to remove Marjory and Kasmeer though? I agree the writing isn’t the best thing ever here but your title is pretty specific and I explained some good points about Kas. You seem to have picked these 2 characters, then retreated to ‘all the writing is bad’ without backtracking on them, while maintaining you were worried about homophobic assumptions being made (which could be avoided with “The writing could be improved” as your title and discussing that rather than running right into “Remove the lesbians but not in a homophobic way” <- because thats exactly what the homophobes say xD).

I like both of them, especially since they are lesbian AND none Sylvari(I belive at this point we can say that almost all the Sylvari are bisexuall because gender doesn’t matter much to them), it makes for interesting plottpossibilitys(and I will fully admit, in the Scarlettfight when Marjory got blown up, I was “oh kitten” for a few seconds). If it is about destinys edge 2.0 I like them in following order(from best to least)

1. Taimi(I just love that little Scarlett fangirl, best Asura in all of Tyria)
2. Marjory(While the storypart about her sister seemed a litte rushed, I still think of her as an intersting character)
3. Kasmeer(I loved it when she flipped out in the Scarlettfight)
4. Rox(She lacks character, I would love to see some improvements in writing here, but it helps that she is a charr)
5: Braham(His mother complex is a little annoying, but well, at least he watches over Taimi, so I guess he is alright)

I am really looking forward to seeing Channach join the party, he is the most interesting Sylvari the story had so far and I wonder how not having a dream even without beeing a soundless influences his connection to Mordremoth, so he might take the second place from Marjory then

And while it does make sense for Charr to not have big plottpoints involving their sexual orientation since their whole race isn’t really concentrated about romantic relationships, more over comeradery) I do wonder if we will ever see homosexual Asura or Norn, but on the other hand, I don’t care much about the sexual orientation as long as it makes for a good story, if both partys agree to it, let them touch buttz with one another!

Hehe best part about this, is most people get the irony that his post was deleted without reason and complains about it, but he expects the same for 2 NPCs.

Comedy GOLD! As Ozan said.

i don’t like the charr. can we get rid of them because i don’t like them?

rytlock can stay. he’s cool.

mcgriddles.2416:

i don’t like the charr. can we get rid of them because i don’t like them?

rytlock can stay. he’s cool.

Seconded.

Can we also get rid of other players? I don’t much care for them, they ruin immersion, are offensive, and don’t meaningfully add to the depth of the game.

Also remove the keyboard interface. People use it to troll and grief other players. It’s a tool that is widely used for offensive remarks from others. It doesn’t add anything to the game. As well as mouse, joystick, or any other input device.

:P

I only like Traehearn in this game. Can we remove all the other NPCs and replace them with millions of Trahearnes?

Lol.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I only like Traehearn in this game. Can we remove all the other NPCs and replace them with millions of Trahearnes?

Lol.

I just tried to imagine a world full of trahearns, and no matter what you do in it, they get the credit for it while the general public(of trahearns of course) denies your existance xD

to OP: LOL ROFL – it was exactly thoughts of my friend and when I started LW2 – 1st chapter – I was like WTF are those freaks (all of them!) so horrible sentences, acting – they are just wierd. And when the fight started, they just tried to revive you which is useless. So yes, thanks for them! Im not sure why they are there at all … maybe to annoy you even more if you die in slaughter or of boredom…

Gay marriage is legal in Tyria, unlike Republican-controlled America.

The story would be much better without any of the new “characters” they introduced. I honestly haven’t finished the story yet because it is so bad. The when, where, and how the lines are “delivered” are horrible and most of them are not needed. I cringe when the amazingly gay duo is on the screen. Keep on reaffirming that relationship. Shove it down our throats, because it is not obvious enough yet. Even Logan and Queen Jennah’s relationship isn’t written this badly (and that one is pretty bad on its own).

At the very least, make a freakin skip button. Maybe then I could finish this so called story. The further along this story goes on the further they burn down the wonderful lore of Guild Wars 1. It has become a complete mockery of itself.

Vanthian.9267:

The story would be much better without any of the new “characters” they introduced. I honestly haven’t finished the story yet because it is so bad. The when, where, and how the lines are “delivered” are horrible and most of them are not needed. I cringe when the amazingly gay duo is on the screen. Keep on reaffirming that relationship. Shove it down our throats, because it is not obvious enough yet. Even Logan and Queen Jennah’s relationship isn’t written this badly (and that one is pretty bad on its own).

At the very least, make a freakin skip button. Maybe then I could finish this so called story. The further along this story goes on the further they burn down the wonderful lore of Guild Wars 1. It has become a complete mockery of itself.

Agreed on everything save the Logan – Jennah (and the GW1 since I did not play it). The only difference here is that these two are fortunately not around you most of the time. I was allergic to Destiny Edge and namely Logan and/or Jennah every time they were on screen during character story. Thinking about it, I really do not recall anything romance based in this game which would feel at least somehow… good. It feels as if they hired a 13 year old virgin and asked him to design the romance subplots, then they changed gender of one protagonist where they needed a gay romance.

Mudran.8105:

And when the fight started, they just tried to revive you which is useless.

Well, and even this not very often.