Guild Wars 2

Warning: This contains possible spoilers about the end game content

The final mission, Victory or Death, is way too long, lasting about 4 hours. Make it at least 2 hours shorter. And give players a good reward after completing it e.g. an exotic level 80 item which is usable by that character. You can make that item soul bound and make it once per character reward, so it won’t affect the game economy. Now it is very difficult to find a player group who would want to do Victory or Death, because the rewards are so low and almost nobody wants to do it again.

Better yet, make Trahearne do Vizier Khilbron at the end. In other words turn evil.
I personally believe that Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Russian Folktale is the best guide tool to make epic stories. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp

At the end the hero (= player) should be rewarded with either spouse, riches or power, or any combination of any of those three. Yes, get married and get a powerful item + gold or a small castle, building house of his/her own. In Propp’s story model there is a character called False Hero. Trahearne would fit this role perfectly. Trying to steal the credit from the hero.

Here is my reworked version of Victory and Death:

Beginning as it is. But then after defeating the Mouth of Zhaitan, Trahearne suddenly casts a powerful spell, which renders everybody else, but the player hero, helpless.

Trahearne: “Why didn’t the spell work on you? Why are you not helpless like all the others? Is it some strange magic which got imbued to you during our journeys or was it the dream?”
Player: “What are you talking about? What is happening to others?”
Trahearne: “I am sorry, but this is the best way. The dragon would have won at the end anyway…”

Now Zhaitan reveals himself from the shadows.

Trahearne: “Zhaitan promised that I would be the next king of Orr”
Player: “You are insane. Orr is the land of the dead. I should have seen it coming. You were summoning undead. Nobody knew more about Orr than you. How long have you been working with Zhaitan?”

Trahearne: “It doesn’t matter now. All I need to do is kill you to get my final reward”.
(yes, the dialogue should be kept that short and simple).

Then follows an epic duel between Trahearne and player. If the player wins, he gets a chance to possess Caladbolg, Trahearne’s magical sword. The sword is strongly corrupted. The more player uses its powers the more his corruption meter rises. When the corruption reaches 100%, he will be one with Zhaitan. The player can always opt not to use Caladbolg at all and use his/her normal weapons.

A final match between Zhaitan and the player. The final battle location is designed so that the player can use his wits to avoid the dragon’s deadly breath by going behind pillars or running back into temporary safety into so small (dead-end) tunnels where Zhaitan cannot reach him. Zhaitan will summon undead veterans to kill the player if he is hiding too long time. After Zhaitan is defeated all the Risen perish and the player can loot the Dragon. And of course dragons have a huge treasure hoard. Player is given a token of matrimony (one time use, account bound), 2 gold coins and an exotic level 80 weapon of player’s choice.

The token of matrimony can be used once to marry another character if that other character also agrees that. The marriage status is displayed when other players view that character.

Thank you for listening. You are free to use my idea.

Deniara

I like it all mostly.