Guild Wars 2

I made another topic, because this is a little bit different to those similar topics. And careful, spoilers!!!

I don’t satisfy with plot at all. I barely can call it “Personal Story”. It’s not. It’s not my character’s story, I don’t feel it.

Plot means that the story tells us about our hero, our hero are the main subject. And if great things happen in the world and if our hero is not that guy, who does those great, historical things, in this case, historical events shouldn’t be important. And what should be important, it is our character, what is happening with our character.

Plot started with “This is my story”, right? Now, what we have right now? We have events, with huge scale, and we have our character, our hero. These events are the main subject in GW2 story. But what about our character? Does it really his story? Or he is only a small part of the story? In this case it isn’t his story, and he isn’t as main hero of a plot, as he should be. He just some person, one of the figures in the plot, nothing more.

I can call “this is my character’s story” only that part, which shows us a small part of our character’s past. I can call “this is my character’s story” only that part, which tells us about our character’s race. When we starting working with members of the three orders, that’s when our character’s story is finished. That’s what I feel.
After meeting with members of three orders, the story tells us about huge events, historical events, about dragons. We join one of the three orders of Tyria and then plot shows us a little bit about order we choose. Than plot tells us about mini race we choose. After that, plot bring us to Claw Island, and here comes this sylvary npc. From that moment he is the one, who are making negotiations, our character step back to shadow.

After Claw Island we helped some members of Durmand Priory, where our character was a little bit in a shadow, because this npc sylvari step forward. And then, mother of all Sylvari, the Pale Tree, showed us a future, and in this vision, not our character, but this npc sylvari, was the one, who will lead people. He is the one, not us!

Tell me, why do I care about this npc? How is it suppose to be interesting for me, listening this story, which tells not about my hero, but someone who I don’t know, and don’t care about?
What next? Because I stop doing my “Personal Story” here, on 55 lvl, after this little prophecy about this sylvari is going to lead, is going to be general. Why him? Why not our character gets this job? In the “Flameseeker Prophecies” our character is the one, who this prophecy was talking about. Glint told my character that he is the one.
And after that we have similar situation, but only with some npc? Was that supposed to be exiting?
Where is “personal story” than? This is supposed to be a personal story of my character, his story, but not some sylvari and other npc!
If your plot is telling about killing elder dragon, than our hero must be the main figure on this chess desk. Other important heroes must be not as main as our character. If he is not the main, than this event with killing elder dragons suppose to take a step back to a shadow.

It’s like in our real lives. It’s not important about wars, revolutions, and other historical events. It’s all about us and what we are feeling, who we care about and what WE do. These huge events are not as important for us, as our own life, they are not as important as our feeling about that girl, slim, beautiful, with dark long straight hairs, her blue eyes, her smile (that was example)… That is important for us, because it’s our lives, its is our story, not those world events with other people.

In Guild Wars 2 we have “this is my story” only when plot are telling us about our character’s past. That’s it. After that, no references about our hero’s story. I don’t feel it. I don’t care about this huge event with killing elder dragon, if my character is not the one, who leads people, but someone else. This isn’t my character’s story, this story is about Trahearne. But I don’t care about this person, not even the members of Destiny’s Edge, they are not the main heroes for me, they just figures in a personal story, my character’s story. I got really angry when I heard that this Trahearne is making speech about Zhaitan. Who is this guy? Why do you put him and made him the main chess figure?

If our char are not the main hero of this story about killing dragon, than it is not the story you should show us. At least this story shouldn’t be the main, and the main should be something that connected to our hero directly.

Now I understand why people, who have played in GW1, complaining about GW2 lore. In GW1 it was our hero, who stopped Lich, who this prophecy was talking about, our character was that chosen. It was our hero, who stopped Shiro Tagachi. It was our hero who killed Abaddon and saved the world. It was our hero who made an inspiring speech, just before entering to Abaddon’s prison. It is OUR HERO who said: “We are not along”! This phrase you can hear from Kormir’s priest and priestess.

I don’t see it in GW2 at all. Arena, you should consider this. I hope you will do something more interesting than what we have right now. You promised us epic lore, if I’m not mistaken. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mean that GW 2 is suck, or lore suck, not at all. But what we have right now, I can’t call it “my character’s story”. Yes, he makes choices in personal story, but despite of that, I don’t feel that this is his story. Only his past, I can call that this is his story, nothing more. Yes, our hero do things, makes choices, but there is no sense in his choices, in his deeds, cause he isn’t the one, who the story is talking about.

If our character are not the main figure in world events, than those events aren’t important in our character’s story. What is important is our character, him and only him, his story, his purpose, not someone else. If your story topic is Elder Dragons, than our characters must be the one, who is going take them down. He must be the one, who inspires people and lead them, not some npc sylvari.
Otherwise, killing dragons must be not the main topic in our character’s personal story. And all important figures, such as Destiny’s Edge, that sylvari, Queen Jenah, and others, they are not as important as our character.

For now I have a feeling, that we don’t have any main character in plot till Trahearne appears. After that we know who is the hero of the story, it’s him. Isn’t that funny?

I hope in a future, our characters will be the main heroes in their personal story as they should be. Maybe they will, I don’t know what you are preparing for us, but honestly? I am little bit kitten off and hesitating about that.

GW2 is good, very good, I love this game, but Plot…. well for now, I miss GW1 plot.

I was just having a similar talk about this with some guild friends! I miss GW1 because of GW2! I miss the excitement and memories created by doing the missions!
It was epic, great cut scenes. It had replay value.

The current “PS” is boring tbh. I did it. I, like the guys above found it to be about Trahern more then me. It’s like my character stepped back. It was OK at the start… very far from the fun start to GW1 and the memories of the missions of that game!

I get bored in the GW2 CS… being talked at is just boring for me. I switch off and often hit skip because I know I am on a boring part of the PS. I miss the epic CS of GW1! Where I was the hero! Action was happening! I was running away from something, or witnessing the death of Prince Rurik… I loved replaying missions and feeling epic in that.

I have 2 characters in this, by accident I have some how found myself repeating a few missions I did on my first. All I felt, was “ugh not this one again. Run A-B… kill something and be talked to in a very boring CS!” which, isn’t a CS… it’s just 2 people against a background just standing there.

I feel no love for much of it. I enjoy other aspects of the game. I think the game as a whole is lacking for it’s story. I miss the mission being an instance so I can replay it again and again and again! Completing all the objectives to get the swords! Yeah… I can do the dungeon mission again. No way near the same! I loved getting my swords and a mark on my map to say “I DID THIS!” It meant something! Then switching map to hard mode omg awesome!

The end of the PS was such a let down too. I was hoping for something amazing. An epic fight. I some how felt like I was just watching King Kong! >.>
Then I didn’t get an exotic, but a token to pick a just a rare. I miss the GW1, kill the big bad, everyone has some little party and you got to pick a green!

I just hope hope HOPE they do something better with the rest of the game. Add more replay value to it. I don’t just want to keep rolling chars all the time for a quite boring bit of PS. Other then that, there just isn’t much to do. I have no aim for the PS side of things.

FoTM is fun. I have a 100% map, 2 level 80s. 1 Legendary weapon. But no epic memories to show for it!
I also wish to go and be a hero in FoW and the UW! Bring back a big dungeon like that, with a series of quests inside to pop some awesome dude to get awesome armor! >.>

This post may feel a tad off topic. My point is that GW1 > GW2 storys and memories.

I am to lazy to read all this text, but i need a place to show my own frustration about the personal story:

1. I am always called the big one, i united the three orders, i am the dragonmurderer, but i dont feel like a hero but like the sidekick of trahaerne convinced with big words…
   In GW1, there were many )interesting charakters, which did also importand stuff, but i killed the lich, shiro, abbadon and the big destoyer as a person acting beside the organisations. Especially in GW Byond that feeling was great^^. Whatever, in the beginning of gw2 i do quests from low importance with big influence on a few people, that may is not herolike, but personal. As part of the orders, i only feel like a little underling but at least the story is interesting. After that undead over undead, i feel like a mere soldier instead of a hero… especially my biggest sucess… that was a boring talking without any decision by myself… you really think i feel heroic after seeing a few idiotic quarrels between orders and ending them by some idealistic words like “we have to work all together”, “Grr, she is right, lets be all friends”… What incredible action
2. Wearing the special sword, further journeys, special magic like five flesh golems… trahearne feels like the real deal, but he can nothing in fights and is blubbering is hell… he has a unsure personality and needs always kicks in the * to decide anything… you ever learned about the needed overconfident personality of a leader? and his talking in the storyline… his depressong “this looksd bad” over and over again (dont know, wht he says in english) makes me sick… moreover his looks… there are so great sylvaries, but he looks like a plain weed.
3. To much with undeads and to less different storyquests… OK, if i dislike the zombies, i have bad luck with the first chapter of GW2, but at least different quests, i mean doing the claw island with any char… one of the most boring storyquests… and the little difference in talks (once a charr-selfsacrifice, once a norn…) makes the boring action no better…
4. heros in gw2 (destinys edge and especially trahearne) are horrible weak… i mean trahaerne can nothing alone but is soo great… furthermore claw island, they fight without any change… like a typical me vs 2 fight but increasing the numbers on both sides to let is look like a war…
5. claw island, the biggest fail ever. I fight at the coast while rescuing the woman. I also try to kill all undeads on my way, but they come over and over again and finally (after a not too short time) i realize i have to run to the charr ignoring the undead… but before the sacrefice of my friend i have to kill some zombies (i ran around without killing after i realize i cant kill all of them and think killing cant be the right thing (i only had to kill a few more, but this thinking was wrong before, how could it be right this time…) Than i also fall down into the water during my second visit and some of the undeads are eaven invincible… i really hate this island…

I have a feeling they’ll fix this in the first expansion to the game, which will probably deal with taking down another dragon, such as Jormag, Primordius, or Kralkatorrik, with you joining Destiny’s Edge (and hopefully increase their AI so they’re not so easy to take down in the quests).

I personally put my money on Jormag, as it seems to me that he’d be the easier one to defeat, being that he stays in the snow regions. Primordius would be difficult due to him staying underground, and Kralkatorrik…he’s the size of a kitten region, how the hell you expect to do anything to him without first gathering experience/resources from taking down the other ones? We don’t have the big guns to take him down this time, after all…

BUMP!!! I really hope this get fixed because I probably replayed the story in GW1 hundreds of times yet I can’t bring myself to even FINISH my first character’s story…and I’m not motivated at all to come back to this game to start a new character story arc. I’m reading news to see if things got changed but seems like another mass event and not personal story is added. I’ll check back in a few months to see if the story is even worth my time.

I have to join in and add my voice to this. The personal story was just plain unengaging and did not make me feel heroic at all, if anything it made me feel like a passive observer, a sidekick to this uninteresting mary sue that is trahaerne. Up until claw island everything was somewhat ok, it was still about my character at that point but still pretty weak. The entire time I thought, well its going to pick up, after all I am going to beat the elder dragon. Enter Traeharne, a character you’ve never seen before who suddenly becomes the most important character in the game, completely stole my thunder.

It almost completely invalidated everything I had done prior, made it feel as if though i was just wasting time until the real hero – Traeharne could show up and begin his story. It was entirely deflating and completely killed any feeling that I was the HERO. Now this wouldnt be so bad if it werent for the fact that in your manifesto video you claimed you wanted to make the individual player feel like a hero. I am sad to say that you dropped the ball down a 9 mile hole in the kohla peninsula, not only do you not feel like the hero of the story, but you also feel as if none of the fights mattered. I mean honestly the big bad guy zhaitan? a child could probably kill him, he seems no more a threat than a quaggan.

And after going through it all you just sit there and sort of think to yourself, maybe they should’ve just cut out “personal” story altogether and devoted resources to another game aspect like pvp or something. Honestly even though I know there will be no way to fix it now that the game is out, I am hoping you guys will read this and think “jeez well maybe in our future content we can put the focus on the players character instead of just introducing a boring and uninspiring (not to mention previously unknown” character halfway through that then proceeds to become the focus of everything".

I know you guys are capable of doing amazing things with your story, you proved that in Guild Wars 1. That is why this is so dissapointing to me Anet, you had something good and then you gave us trahaerne.

I’d have been fine with my character being the sixth member of DE, because unlike HE THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED, they have personality. They were clearly designed with some effort and they react with my character, taking supporting and helpful roles— but not stealing the spotlight.

BUT Nooo. NOOOO. YOU HAD TO BRING HIM IN HERE AND CAUSE MY ADORABLE, WITTY ASURA TO START TALKING BOOKAH.

Let’s be honest here, its not you’re story till you can write about in Bio section of your character. This is all meta thinking but that’s what I loved about City Of Heroes, yes you had you’re own tale, but you also had a description of who you were, what you did and how you planned on going out.

I like the story arcs in GW2 but its missing a few things.

Killigraphy.3075:

Let’s be honest here, its not you’re story till you can write about in Bio section of your character. This is all meta thinking but that’s what I loved about City Of Heroes, yes you had you’re own tale, but you also had a description of who you were, what you did and how you planned on going out.

I like the story arcs in GW2 but its missing a few things.

If I thought my story could exist only insofar as what I could write in a character bio then I wouldn’t be playing a MMO but a pen and paper RPG. The point of a video game is being able to visually see and act out what you could only imagine and replicate through dice rolls in a PnP RPG.

Yeah, I hate Trahearne too. Kill him in the next expansion pretty please?

Is it m or does Trahearne have NO personality or anything…he really is a walking log.

Atish.4351:

Is it m or does Trahearne have NO personality or anything…he really is a walking log.

His lack of any real emotion is his personality.

His personality is equivalent to a walking stick. I don’t like his voice acting either.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN0W2j-XWR8

Here is my question.

Have we heard anything on the forums from devs agreeing that they messed up on our personal stories? Have they ever responded to one of these posts promising they will deliver better PS in the future? Possibly editing our old stories? This is what I care about. If I were to share my own experiences, it would be copy n paste exactly what everyone else has posted.

I understand that devs have a lot on their plates, but this should be part of the main course. It’s amazing that they have such great ideas and amazing lore, but fail miserably at sharing it within the game. I want to feel inspired like everyone else to reach end-game and finally become the hero I was promised.

Anyone else wondering how the PS is going to work with a “living world” and “living story”?
As it is, what’s going to happen to the current PS when they can’t keep Zhaitan and his minions named and referenced all over the place after he’s been defeated lorewise? So confus.

hmmm… Well, even as Frodo was “the one”, and was who destroyed the One Ring, LOTR is also the story of the other hobbits, and the rest of the fellowship. You can start with Sam or Aragorn saying “this is my story”, because even if they don’t destroyed the ring or killed Sauron, they helped, they learned a lot of things, they lived through it… So yes, the PS can be “my” story, even if I am not the dragon killer.

The story of the life of a soldier can be told as a war narration, even if that particular soldier didn’t won singlehanded that war.

Once said that… yes, please, kill Trahearne, and make the PS more heroic and close to us.

you know what the biggest problem is, not just how the story is done but also how the dialogs are done.
in GW you were there in an environment talking with other NPC’s, in GW2 you’re just slapped on a film and every single emotion and environmental excitement is sucked out of it.

i want to see my character in a situation, i want her to run up to an NPC to try and save him, i want to see the action and situation happening while the cutscene is going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMVNMn37amY

i like dynamic scenes over static walls of talking puppets, it just doesn’t make the PS the way we expect them to be.
they can be epic and fun even if we are the sidekick, the problem is more the situations and static walls that sucks the life out of a possible good story.