Guild Wars 2

The entire personal story exists in a separate dimension from the actual PvE world with a few shallow variables and flags dropped here and there in order to maintain the fiction of verisimilitude. Guild Wars 2 is essentially a MMO where nothing you do actually matters nor has an impact on the game – other than access to a “Members Only” area with limited function.

It offers no choice, just the illusion of choice thanks to gated content. Whatever you do in the game, the outcome is essentially the same. This removes much of the motivation for actually seeing the personal story on replays – you don’t forge your destiny as much as succumb to a scripted and inevitable fate.

Rationally speaking, it’s not always feasible to get a complex story done. But homogeneity of the storyline results in mass-produced interchangeable characters. I can choose to play a midget gnome, a not-an-elf-really, a furry cat or an obese giant, but the ultimate result is the same – Saints Row 3’s voice choices had more divergence in base personality than racial choices do. I miss Eye of the North and its true horizontal progression with PvE skills (and the title grind). I miss party dynamics and my AI companions. I miss having stories with actual dramatic effect rather than some shallow mentor-that-hits-all-the-contrived-death-flags and only turns up in the bizarro Personal Story dimension anyway.

And as for storytelling: I used to read Jeff Grubb’s DnD stories when growing up, but it’s apparent to me these days that he doesn’t have an iota of the talent Ragnar Tørnquist does. Thank you for destroying yet another illusion of my childhood. A good storyteller knows the value of subtlety and doesn’t shove facts down your throat and insult player intelligence, but no, Guild Wars 2 has to cater to the lowest common denominator by explaining kitten things and creating artificial MCQ situations instead of making choice selection active (I’d like to point out that The Secret World let you make player choice decisions without resorting to ridiculously contrived MCQ situations with 3 npcs staring at each other waiting for you to arrive).

A good storyteller doesn’t force-feed a narrative, he reveals. A good player doesn’t say “I want to do this” – he just does it and it’s your job to detect the decisions he made. Anet, I like you very much, but please force your writing team to play TSW.

Edit: I’d like to point out the biggest problem with GW2’s MCQ is that of the false dilemma. There were many, many situations where you’re presented a bunch of non-mutually exclusive options and yet you can’t go “Why can’t we just do ALL of them?”. Everyone is grotesquely mentally incompetent, including the asura. “Oh, I chose to join the Order of Whispers, so the Priory and Vigil agents will naturally refuse to help protect Queen Jennah” (Granted she’s completely useless and we’re expected to like her just-because.) – That suggests an appalling immaturity, spitefulness and pettiness within the 3 orders. What are they – squabbling vindictive children? Why is everyone so two-dimensional?

Lex Talionis.5396:

Anet, I like you very much, but please force your writing team out a window.

I felt a slight adjustment was needed, there.

Lex Talionis.5396:

Edit: I’d like to point out the biggest problem with GW2’s MCQ is that of the false dilemma. There were many, many situations where you’re presented a bunch of non-mutually exclusive options and yet you can’t go “Why can’t we just do ALL of them?”. Everyone is grotesquely mentally incompetent, including the asura. “Oh, I chose to join the Order of Whispers, so the Priory and Vigil agents will naturally refuse to help protect Queen Jennah” (Granted she’s completely useless and we’re expected to like her just-because.) – That suggests an appalling immaturity, spitefulness and pettiness within the 3 orders. What are they – squabbling vindictive children? Why is everyone so two-dimensional?

Oh, sweet Jesus. I couldn’t STAND the introduction to the orders. After that arc, I didn’t want to join any of them.

I always thought I was pretty easy going when it came to bad writing. Usually, nothing really grates on my nerves in a way that causes me to stop and exclaim, “this story SUCKS!” The “personal” story in this game is the exception.

Lex Talionis.5396:

It offers no choice, just the illusion of choice thanks to gated content. Whatever you do in the game, the outcome is essentially the same. This removes much of the motivation for actually seeing the personal story on replays – you don’t forge your destiny as much as succumb to a scripted and inevitable fate.

While it’s true the game doesn’t offer any meaningful choices, I did imagine my character electing to stay and die with Sieran on Claw Island instead of being stuck with… He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Interesting. Then I just stopped playing the personal story completely. Hell, it’s not like my character is actually my character. I don’t feel any attachment to that terminally stupid bundle of pixels. I suppose that’s also the reason it’s getting harder and harder to play the game at all, these days.

Maligne.6182:

While it’s true the game doesn’t offer any meaningful choices, I did imagine my character electing to stay and die with Sieran on Claw Island instead of being stuck with… He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Interesting. Then I just stopped playing the personal story completely. Hell, it’s not like my character is actually my character. I don’t feel any attachment to that terminally stupid bundle of pixels. I suppose that’s also the reason it’s getting harder and harder to play the game at all, these days.

Anet’s problem with regard to that latter situation you raise is that there’s no emotional investment in any character other than your death-flagged mentor. An important narrative characteristic for someone to be a hero is that one has to be -unwilling- or at least go through personal sacrifice. Heroes have to be forged. We have to feel empathy before we can feel respect or sympathy.

Hence the problems work out like this:
1) Your character has paid the obligatory motivation tax by having his or her mentor die. What does Trahearne risk himself? What manner of duress does he experience? We’re expected to empathise with him for having some impossible geas which supposedly causes him significant emotional trauma? Trahearne makes no visible sacrifices.

This is why even though Rurik was annoying and an idiot, people don’t hate him halfway as much as Trahearne. Rurik paid the narrative sacrifice tax and gave up his kingdom and his fiancee.

2) Trahearne has done nothing worth of respect by the time you meet him. Instead, his combat abilities (it takes him 5 minutes to fight a single undead cow – and he loses) are laughable, he needs to be babysat, and we’re just told that he’s worthy of respect and therefore we should do so. As I’ve already said, telling is always less effective than showing in literature. To be fair, Destiny’s Edge has the exact same problem, and so do all the authority figures – Leadership and authority come with respect and talent. As a result, the player is guided to treat Trahearne with contempt.

3) Characters whip in and out of your personal story more often than you change your underpants. The decision to make story arcs arbitrary tiered standalone content in tiers of 10 mean that any character who is remotely interesting never gets character development because you’ll never see them again in a meaningful context after you outlevel their tier. Goodness knows you never see them outside Bizarro Personal Story World anyway – so talking about them might as well be as constructive as talking about your imaginary friends/pets that only you can see.

You know, as annoying and idiotic as Alesia (or other GW1 henchmen) was, at least she had a presence which I could share with friends (provided she wasn’t face-down in a poison swamp). I’d tell people “Hm, I’ll bring Livia and you bring Vekk”, for example. Heroes had presence outside of mission mode.

Guild Wars 2 originally had a companion system in early planning stages, but they scrapped it (probably because they realised TOR would probably do it better?).

Maligne.6182:

Oh, sweet Jesus. I couldn’t STAND the introduction to the orders. After that arc, I didn’t want to join any of them.

I always thought I was pretty easy going when it came to bad writing. Usually, nothing really grates on my nerves in a way that causes me to stop and exclaim, “this story SUCKS!” The “personal” story in this game is the exception.

This. So much. After one mission with them and going back to my home district to hear them squabble I thought, “these are the jokers that are supposed to help save Tyria?”

I know that it’s pretty late in the day but the so called “Personal Story” needs to go away. It’s stupid, boring, and frustrating, aside from being a total waste of a player’s time. There really should only be one general world quest line. Everything else just seems a distraction. For persons who wish a personal side story, I would suggest some sort of ingame journal containing quest achievements, player commentary and backstory in character, etc. All I know is that the personal story mode is just unworkable. It feels like something someone just tacked on a the last minute. It takes my char away from me and makes him/her as slave of the story writer.

Lex Talionis.5396:

To be fair, Destiny’s Edge has the exact same problem, and so do all the authority figures – Leadership and authority come with respect and talent. As a result, the player is guided to treat Trahearne with contempt.

Just ingame lore would idd picture Destiny’s edge to the same problem as trahearne
But I rly liked destiny’s edge because I read all the books.

Imo it’s rly annoying that Dougal Keane has no greater role in the story anymore (who was a protagonist in the first book)

Using him for example as a leader, and showing us through some story about what he has done and lost, would’ve made a better picture for an empathetic leader.

Also, what would’ve made me feel like my choices rly made a difference, was maybe receiving some mails from the ppl I saved like, 10 levels further on. You’d be playing, suddenly get a mail and you’re like: omg … He still remembers me!

I liked the fact that Rrytlock sent some mails while we leveled to talk about how things are going in the Black Citadel as I was leveling my charr. Too bad it stopped after I hit 80 … which was in a month already

kKagari.6804:

This. So much. After one mission with them and going back to my home district to hear them squabble I thought, “these are the jokers that are supposed to help save Tyria?”

I hear you. As a sylvari, the only one I could halfway stand was the Vigil representative. And as a charr, I disliked them all. Bunch of posturing brats. “You’re so dumb!” — “No, YOU are dumb!” — “I know something you don’t, and it’s impotant, but I won’t tell, neener neener neener!” Ugh.

I enjoyed the story overall until it went from PVE to Dungeon Mode all of a sudden. My only real complaint is that the story mode leaves too many loose ends, which was my same complaint with Oblivion. Stroll back through town after saving the world and the NPCs great you with complete indifference. In other words, nothing you did ultimately changed the world around you.

There will still be Risen in the swamps all over Tyria, so at the very least, add some character interactions at the end to tie up all the storyline threads.

I would like to see more of the lower level characters appear in the higher level content and have all your choices impact the home instance once your story is complete.

At the very least, a “welcome back! Good job slaying that dragon, your sister is waiting for you having a drink at the tavern with these characters whose lives you changed, here in your home pub.”

Also, whatever did happen to Demi Beetlestone or Lady Anise?

This is an mmo, it’s not like a solo game where things can just change and stay that way. Eventually you will see the changes you made to the world through instances. The over world has to remain the same + new content for those that are just starting out.

The alternative to this in other mmos is raiding. The stories that are told through raiding are not worth mentioning. The guild wars 2 story is much better than any of those. The overworld in other mmos is even less memorable.

Torvarren.6295:

This is an mmo, it’s not like a solo game where things can just change and stay that way. Eventually you will see the changes you made to the world through instances. The over world has to remain the same + new content for those that are just starting out.

The alternative to this in other mmos is raiding. The stories that are told through raiding are not worth mentioning. The guild wars 2 story is much better than any of those. The overworld in other mmos is even less memorable.

I completely disagree with your opinion. In fact, I don’t think you have played many MMORPGs at all.

1) World of Warcraft, for one, has had phasing technology since Wrath of the Lich King. If you have no idea what that is: http://www.wowwiki.com/Phasing – I’d also like to point out that it’s not unique to WoW. For example: City of Heroes used Phasing in the Going Rogue expansion, which had far better writing, plot, and character significance. When NPCs died, they stayed dead in the external world.

2) You present another false dilemma. The reason I specifically brought up The Secret World is because it has an extremely strong narrative without using raiding at all. Other games that can present compelling narrative include Final Fantasy XI and Aion, both of which I feel have more interesting stories than Guild Wars 2. Yet another example would be Star Wars, TOR.

Here is an example of how well TSW does it – using the fewest words to make the most of an impact for a minor quest NPC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzVRMculJq8

The problem with Guild Wars 2’s story is that it is insulting, poorly written, disjointed, shallow, inconsistent and banal.

Insulting – For the appalling lack of subtlety. “Oh no, the undead are attacking!” (Thank you very much, Mr Obvious. I was really afraid they’d be sitting around and playing contract bridge, or holding tupperware parties, but they’re attacking people! Quelle surprise!) Guild Wars 2’s plot is about as subtle as a brick of exposition to the face. To be honest, by the end of the storyline, I was half expecting NPCs that died to go “Oh no – I am dead!”

Poorly written – Guild Wars 2 has a plot of convenience that requires everyone in the world to be unfathomably stupid for it to work. Just a simple example – You find that the magical dragon with deus ex powers of convenience runs off magical artifact-sized batteries that have to be fed to a surrogate mouth in an area that is the exact opposite of “heavily defended” considering the strategic importance of such an organism. Conveniently, the magic dragon forgets the “how to teleport or stealth body parts to safety” powers it so happily demonstrated a few missions earlier in an underwater temple. Would that the players had such a short-term memory.

Disjointed – Guild Wars 2 requires you to be psychic in order to see characters from your early personal story turn up again later in the story. Given that the majority of the players are not psychic and probably did not pick that particular MCQ option, most late-game Orr NPCs are more of a “who the hell is this” experience than “oh, it’s that guy”. In the human storyline, you may foil a plan which ends up getting a large proportion of Divinity’s Reach poisoned anyway. The only place this poisoning event exists is in 1 NPC line in your home instance. That’s how important your event decisions are.

Shallow and Inconsistent – Guild Wars 2 has a disturbing tendency to drop events on you and attach far more emotional weight than they are actually worth. To this day, I have no idea why characters go back to Hoelbrak to talk about Crusader Apatia’s legend, the legend of a completely forgettable female “Norn NPC A” with an incredibly generic personality that blindly followed orders and died. Excuse me – 1) Do we actually have the time to do this, considering there’s a war going on and 2) Why didn’t we do this for Forgal?

Banal – Dear Destiny’s Edge: You sure have a lot of time to spend writing me psychic pigeon letters instead of pulling your act together. You might want to spend some time learning more important things, like “how to fight enemies” so that Logan doesn’t die in literally 3 seconds in Caduceus’ Manor, for example.

The story is still infinitely better than a story told by raiding.
We can’t talk game mechanics unless we know what this heavily modified Guild Wars 1 engine is capable of.
NPCs exclaiming that an attack was happening was put in place as a replacement for quest hubs. It was suppose to make you feel more active in the game.
I do not question a storyline that I did not write. I just think of what they could possibly have been thinking and go with that. I can’t see it completely from their point of view so I just have to accept that.
Before the mouth you kill an eye, I assume the eye died because Zhaitan was arrogant, “partially blinding Zhaitan”. This allowed us to strike at the mouth. After doing the story 4 times now and 2 other characters at least halfway through the story I can see the story as a whole. I found my favorite NPC during my 3rd play through and that would be Elli. 2 characters later I found the first story she appears in around level 30.

Maybe they should put in a system that makes you lean towards npcs that you have had previous experiences with.

The home instance will be expanded on in the future.

I assume Apatia was probably the last of those 3 stories and needed a finale at 71.
You inform the bombers widow in one, and clean up a spy in the other.

I also assume that Forgal, Tybalt and Sieran story is not done yet.

In the Pale Tree vision at 55 we clearly did not make it with them to Orr and because of that you see the members of Destiny’s Edge in disarray and Caithe fall into nightmare. Through speculation I see that we weren’t there and Destiny’s Edge failed to come together so the attack on Orr failed.

Torvarren.6295:

The story is still infinitely better than a story told by raiding.
We can’t talk game mechanics unless we know what this heavily modified Guild Wars 1 engine is capable of.
NPCs exclaiming that an attack was happening was put in place as a replacement for quest hubs. It was suppose to make you feel more active in the game.
I do not question a storyline that I did not write. I just think of what they could possibly have been thinking and go with that. I can’t see it completely from their point of view so I just have to accept that.
Before the mouth you kill an eye, I assume the eye died because Zhaitan was arrogant, “partially blinding Zhaitan”. This allowed us to strike at the mouth. After doing the story 4 times now and 2 other characters at least halfway through the story I can see the story as a whole. I found my favorite NPC during my 3rd play through and that would be Elli. 2 characters later I found the first story she appears in around level 30.

Maybe they should put in a system that makes you lean towards npcs that you have had previous experiences with.

The home instance will be expanded on in the future.

I assume Apatia was probably the last of those 3 stories and needed a finale at 71.
You inform the bombers widow in one, and clean up a spy in the other.

I also assume that Forgal, Tybalt and Sieran story is not done yet.

In the Pale Tree vision at 55 we clearly did not make it with them to Orr and because of that you see the members of Destiny’s Edge in disarray and Caithe fall into nightmare. Through speculation I see that we weren’t there and Destiny’s Edge failed to come together so the attack on Orr failed.

If you have to contrive excuses to defend the story, the storytelling has already failed.

I knew that was what you would say, but for me the story exists more in my head than in the game. This is the essence of role playing. They give you a starting point and then you choose how to interpret it and where to take it.

This game is designed to appeal to most people in a different way.
Story for those people who love story.
Dynamic Events for those that love a random chaotic feel.
Crafting is another community that has specific wants.
Some people play because they like the graphics.
Renown hearts are there for those that need direction in their gaming.

The point of the game is to find what you enjoy and stick with it. Don’t start the game with expectations that X is going to be awesome or be upset that you didn’t like something. Pick what you like and stick with it. If you don’t like anything, it’s a free to play game, then don’t play.

Torvarren.6295:

I knew that was what you would say, but for me the story exists more in my head than in the game. This is the essence of role playing. They give you a starting point and then you choose how to interpret it and where to take it.

This game is designed to appeal to most people in a different way.
Story for those people who love story.
Dynamic Events for those that love a random chaotic feel.
Crafting is another community that has specific wants.
Some people play because they like the graphics.
Renown hearts are there for those that need direction in their gaming.

The point of the game is to find what you enjoy and stick with it. Don’t start the game with expectations that X is going to be awesome or be upset that you didn’t like something. Pick what you like and stick with it. If you don’t like anything, it’s a free to play game, then don’t play.

This is exactly why I’m using clear examples from Guild Wars 2’s competitors. Guild Wars 2 does not exist in a vacuum and has clear competitors which offer products that deliver in a narrative which is (subjectively) less lacking than that of Guild Wars 2. This is exactly why you cannot use the “It’s the limitations of the engine” argument in this circumstance because saying “If you don’t like it, don’t play it” has no effect whatsoever on the point “Compared to some of the competitors in the MMO medium, Guild Wars 2’s personal story is egregious”. If I don’t like the smell of feces, I don’t have to smell them, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s feces.

Your method of coping is tantamount to self-delusion and denial. If you wanted to present a reasonable counterpoint against my argument, you would argue by counterpoint to my presented evidence, rather than having to fabricate (read: pull out of your butt) excuses that do not have evidence behind them.

The problem is with your excuses, none of which are substantiated by evidence and all of which require a gross assumption that the future holds magical solutions to the existing plot and present even more holes – for example, Zhaitan doesn’t just have one eye. Why would killing one of his eyes completely blind him to the security of his mouth? Why would he even continue operations in an area where he was blinded? I presented many examples of when narrative could be furthered without using a “raid”, as you describe it. Why do you insist on pushing your untenable “raid” point?

Now if you want to be pointlessly optimistic, that is your prerogative to do so – but it does not detract from the points which I made.

About raiding it’s pretty much I would rather do this story an infinite number of times than ever do another raid.

The more times I do this story the more I see holes being filled in.

I can see that Phasing is either not being implemented in GW2 because either they don’t have the ability or they don’t want to. It’s clear when the inside of a building has to match the exact dimensions of the outside. I’ve seen in other mmos where 2 rooms can occupy the same XYZ axis in the game. Guild Wars 2 seems to not have this capability.

My point in talking about different sections of the game is why do you insist in posting on something you don’t like rather than posting on a forum that you do like. Things that you like are much more important and that is what you should focus on. Complaining is pointless if you don’t know how to fix it. A story is just that. Go to a forum you like and post how they could make you like it more.

And one more thing, my posts are debating your reasoning, not the message you seem to be hammering home.

Torvarren.6295:

About raiding it’s pretty much I would rather do this story an infinite number of times than ever do another raid.

The more times I do this story the more I see holes being filled in.

I can see that Phasing is either not being implemented in GW2 because either they don’t have the ability or they don’t want to. It’s clear when the inside of a building has to match the exact dimensions of the outside. I’ve seen in other mmos where 2 rooms can occupy the same XYZ axis in the game. Guild Wars 2 seems to not have this capability.

My point in talking about different sections of the game is why do you insist in posting on something you don’t like rather than posting on a forum that you do like. Things that you like are much more important and that is what you should focus on. Complaining is pointless if you don’t know how to fix it. A story is just that. Go to a forum you like and post how they could make you like it more.

And one more thing, my posts are debating your reasoning, not the message you seem to be hammering home.

I do know exactly how to fix the issue, which I’ve pointed out already: Hire a competent writing team, or failing that, learn from others. Plots of convenience are the absolute worst kind of narrative.

Expression of discontent with the way the personal story has been handled is important to me because Guild Wars 2 was MARKETED with an emphasis on the Personal Story and how decisions you made would be profound and meaningful. They were not. If you want to quibble about whether it is right to complain or not about dissatisfaction with the personal story, I suggest creating another thread.

The story you play through as you level to 80 is hands down the worst RPG/fantasy story I have ever experienced. It’s a shame that such a fantastic MMO, that has some great atmospheric dialog you can choose to stop and listen to while you quest, has a story that was apparently written for a six year old who was home-schooled.

I can only hope future expansions will allow us to be something that doesn’t have a white stick shoved so far up our bummholes.

As for the “choices”, they are so pointless. Every character I level now just presses “skip to the end”, as the story is pretty much the exact same once you’re out of your race story.

Torvarren.6295:

I knew that was what you would say, but for me the story exists more in my head than in the game. This is the essence of role playing. They give you a starting point and then you choose how to interpret it and where to take it.

That is not a success of RPing but a failure of the medium. Ideally the medium and the story in your head should be exactly the same. IE the story in your head should be the exact story unfolding in front of your eyes. The measure of the deviation between the two stories is the measure of the inadequacy of the medium. And that is why RPing always fails in MMOs because the medium is completely inadequate.