Guild Wars 2

I tried helping my friend with his personal story the other day, and when he had a dialogue screen I didn’t see it. Is it just certain ones don’t work with a party at the moment, or is that really how doing the story with a friend works where they simply can’t see anything going on?

Yeah by dialogue screens I mean the cutscenes. I and an associate of mine haven’t been able to see the hosts cutscenes despite being in the same party.

OH!! I understand (sort of) why. I’d assumed it was just bugging out when you’d only sometimes get the cutscenes.

Why not let the cutscenes show in the explorable world? It’s really awkward to just sit there not knowing what’s going on, and of course the mobs still keep fighting while the main character is listening to the story.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

The problem is that in a contained story map we know that only one cutscene is going to play at a time, but in the explorable world any number could be triggered at the same time. (The extreme example being 5 players on 5 different steps in a group that trigger 5 cutscenes at similar times.)

I really don’t think you’re giving players enough credit with that type of concern, and robbing them of a shared experience in the process.

In the example you’re making, I would think the only cutscene everyone in this hypothetical party of five would be seeing is the one that was played first. If someone chooses to skip the cutscene with the little option at the bottom and then immediately begins their own cutscene.. then it only plays for them, or them and anyone else who chose to skip and doesn’t happen to be watching one at the moment.

Really, how many people are turning in personal storyline missions while grouped without the intention of sharing them with the people they’re grouped with in the first place? These aren’t standard quests, they’re personal missions that most people will not invite complete strangers along for. I think it stands to reason that people along for the adventure are looking for the complete cinema experience package.

I think the solution could be even more elegant by performing a range check. Are the following party members standing within X meters of the quest NPC who is about to trigger a cutscene? If so, then let them see it, because clearly they’re standing there waiting to view something. Or, just pop up a dialogue box asking them if they want to participate in the first place.

Perhaps you aren’t aware of this (which is difficult to believe), but there already are at least a couple (that I know of, and probably more) early-level personal storyline cutscenes triggered by NPCs out in the explorable zones that everyone in the party can watch together when triggered (even if they’re of a different race and don’t have the quest). Since you’re saying this would be a bad thing, I have to assume the cutscenes that do this are bugged and the behavior is unintentional. However, it is a very welcome bug that (at least) my party has always been pleasantly surprised to run into. And despite the concerns of potential chaos, we all simply watched these cutscenes happily and then continued on playing.

An example is the Norn mission starting series “A Weapon of Legend” (the entire series, not just that one mission.. all the way through to “Twilight of the Wolf”). During these quests there are several times when you have to speak to NPCs located in public zones (Hoelbrak, Wayfarer Foothills) – and not instance copy of theses zones but the actual world other players are occupying – and, despite being in explorable zones, speaking with the NPC will trigger cutscenes for the entire party. You probably see those as bugged, but if you ask me, all of them should work that way.