Guild Wars 2

I dunno if it’s been said before, or if it’s as important as some of the other stuff mentioned, but I gotta get this off my chest: The writers SERIOUSLY need to learn subtlety, especially when it comes to writing relationships. Of course, I’m talking about Marjory and Kasmeer, and how we were hit on the head over and over about how they were SOOOO LOVEY DOVEY with each other. Now I’m not really saying that the character were bad, not at all. But after a year of this Living Story, the fact that they were lesbians is really the only thing about them that sticks out to me anymore. They spent most if not all of their appearances making goo-goo eyes at each other and throwing innuendo about while the world fell apart, and I just don’t feel that makes for very compelling characters, especially characters that I assume we’ll be interacting with more in the future.

Aw, thank you for asking for feedback. Such thick skin and nice mods+devs. I only get passionate about what I love, so you obvs know my feelings on the game. I have my masters in English, so while my original ideas may not be as good as my critiquing, I’ll give it a crack. Other people have made really good suggestions (esp in tying in Personal Story to LS), so I’m going to do my best not to repeat them.

1) I need themes. Okay, we have a villain. She’s all bouncing evil and boundless intelligence. What’s her arc? She starts off crazy and ends crazy. We learn a little bit about why she’s crazy and then we stake her like we’re Buffy and Scarlet’s this episode’s Big Bad. She started getting ridiculously interesting when we found her lair, where the interesting stuff with Omadd’s experiment started playing out in-game, where we saw a pull between one personality and another, but we should have had that from the get-go, at the same time as the story on the website was posted. How much of Ceara is left? Could we save her? Think of the emotional depth you could have gotten out of a plot with Scarlet that gave you a glimpse of being able to actually communicate with Ceara before having it ripped out of your grasp. There’s this line Canach says about Scarlet, that they’re similar because they want to be individuals and find their OWN hunt instead of having one handed to them, but that they’re different because she wants to do this in the name of destruction (said more eloquently in-game). THAT would have been a fun juxtaposition to have played off of. How much individual freedom is too much? Is “freedom” an illusion? I need characters and plots that specifically try to answer big questions like these. Otherwise it’s just a story with no meaning. It’s like a comic book where everything devolves into “ignore logic and talking, let’s solve every problem, even ones that don’t need it, with a fist to the face.” I’d love for there to be a sort of theme tied to each dragon. For example, maybe the themes along Mordy’s baser plot is money/class; we have the ministers, smugglers, a literal hobo to hero story, a B-Iconic stripped of her noble title, and an Iconic vying to get into bed with the Queen. You could do something decent tying all those elements together in the span of a season. Maybe Logan is growing weary of the class system while Kas wants back in and to drag Jory up with her, and we explore what it means to be “noble” along with whether money can bring you happiness etc, at the same time as we explore the corruption in the city and the riches the white mantle were promised by their margonite overlords. It would be a perfect way to introduce deeper or at least more utilized personality system mechanics – diplomacy. Everyone’s suspicious of Queen Jennah; does power corrupt? Or do we find that with great power comes great responsibility? ;)

2) If I’m not going to speak out loud, at least give my characters a personality. It could be as simple as the Iconics/B-Iconcs/Villains reacting to charisma, ferocity and dignity sliders or as complex as having them react to certain choices I’ve made. Maybe characters like you on a 1 to 10 scale, and if they hate you enough can choose not to work with you. So if I have a ferocity character, Kasmeer will tolerate me but probably not want to work with me as much as Braham or Jory would. In instances where you have a “party” of NPCs to work with, this could give you a slightly different fight, so if you replay LS content it’s not the same exact thing on each character.

3) Rewards that don’t take up inventory space. This is a quibble less related to the writing, but do you want to know where my two journals and Zephyr Sanctum viewer are? Gathering dust in my bank. I’ve not clicked on them since the first time. I love little lore rewards like these (love), but why couldn’t they be stored in a library or a storage case in my home instance? The nodes and obelisk shard are interactive rewards done right. I’m still disappointed that we don’t have all the things from the personal story journal in our home instance to interact with, but at least they’re not taking up space in my bank, heh.

1. Point #10 describes it best. Please build your LW-Content onto your epic Guild Wars universe foundation. As a Guild Wars 1 Veteran all these newly introduced characters and sudden new changes to Tyria felt a bit unnecessary and strange, while having all these unsolved, still evolving and interesting conflicts of the whole Guild Wars lore back in my mind.

I thank you, all the writers and developers of the Guild Wars franchise, a lot for this massive universe you brought to us by Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, EOTN and last but not least the personal story of GW2. But please use this amazing foundation for your living world content too!
I’m not only talking about Cantha and Elona (still hoping for an expansion pack!), but mainly about these little stories, as the lore of the gargoyles, the story behind the floating castle and garenhoff or the ancient ruins of rata sum etc.

This, as a lore addict, is the only point I’d like to see more of in the next season of your living story. I’m sorry for any english mistakes, because it’s not my main language.

I just want to add that I was really dissappointed, when I tried to show some interest to new NPCs, because they weren’t properly settled in game’s reality as a bigger picture. Here’s Eir’s son. OK, I know Eir, I know where she lives, why not visit her and talk about it. I went there and guess what. Nothing, no option to talk about such interesting discovery – she has a son! OK, here’s Rox. She’s afraid to talk to Rytlock. I know Rytlock, I could go talk to him in Rox’s defence. I went there. He wasn’t even in his chamber. Is it really that hard to make some key old NPCs care about the new ones? In the last chapter we met Marjory’s sister. Is it possible to visit Marjory’s family? … I suppose no.

BobbyStein.2315:

What are your top three requests?

It’s hard to pick just three. But I’m gonna go with.

Don’t Do Another Living Story, Make a Living World Smallish updates, things progressing, all good. But spending an entire year on one story arc that most peope disliked was a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge mistake. Things like dredge getting more aggressive and having higher level mobs in certain areas for a month, followed by harpy mating season the next month etc are fun little diversions. Mobs of a type not found in a certain area migrating there for a certain update, etc. Particularly bad storms that debuff you in certain zones, etc. None of these are great examples but I’d love to see more stuff like that than the entire focus on an NPC for a year. Not knowing what is coming next is fun, dreading the next update about a character I don’t care at all about is not. Especially if there’s nothing I can do about it…which leads me to.

Get Us Off the Railroad The entire LS was scripted from start to finish and there was nothing any of us could do about it. Failure wasn’t a possibility and neither was success, except when it was scripted. It didn’t matter how many toxic hybrids we killed, or if we didn’t kill any at all, the tower was going down on schedule and not before or after. Instead of a time gate why not require player action. This tower goes down when 1,000 hybrids are killed on this world, not before or after. Maybe this is never if nobody likes the content. Maybe its the first day if they do. Having what the player does actually mean something would motivate people to be involved more than running it once for achievements and then forgetting about it. And finally…

Use the Lore you Have!!!! There are many, many, many, ways an awesome alliance of incompatible parts could have been justified from the Lore currently. Throwing in a god-mode GMNPC and saying ‘cuz magic’ was the worst possible. The living story hurt the lore, it should have utilized it. Use the characters, factions, and conflicts you have already existing in the game before you make up a new one.

Oh, and yeah, if you’re going to do writing, please have someone who knows how to write do it. Please, please, please. If you can’t manage this then don’t bother with story, I’d rather have bug fixes and features than bad writing.

1. Stop delivering story in social media and websites. This story isn’t happening to me, internet guy who has a day off from work, it’s happening to my character, who has no access to these things. Stop expecting everyone in the world to have a facebook account. When I want information about your game, I visit guildwars2.com. There’s no need to further reinforce corporate co-opting of social media. It’s just noise at this point.

Information on the web portal should better fit its medium. I love blog posts like the talk about hobo-tron or the development mindset behind certain things. Those are articles about people in reality, for people in reality. I love to hear about what’s cool, for me, the player, about the next update. let the story unfold for my character, while I’m playing him.

2. Everyone is stupid, and nobody is effective. Look, I understand that this is a game about heroics where NPCs ultimately have to require player intervention for gameplay to exist. I get that. However, when the whole captain’s coulcil pulls a “naaah” even after the fiasco at claw island, the mari tests… and like a year of scarlet running roughshod over all of tyria? Nobody should have had to campaign to protect the city, it should have been gripped with fear for months already. Braham shouldn’t get to make decisions at all, within the context of his peers he is, self-admittedly, not fit to do so. It’s fine that he’s a big dumb guy, what’s not fine is everyone around him letting the big dumb guy decide things for everyone else. Marjory wouldn’t logically stand for it, nor would Rox.

3. More characters doesn’t automatically make everything better Seriously… how many brand new NPCs were introduced last year? How many of those were necessary to the story, and how many were interchangable? How many of them were just clutter or one-off villains that could have easily been replaced with one another? How many of them do you expect us to care about? Marjory/Kas or Rox/Braham could have easily replaced each other in all content, and been richer characters for the extra time spent with them. Ellen Kiel was a good idea on paper, but ultimately failed to have any impact whatsoever on the greater story, sidelined as she was. Magnus and the council? We’re supposed to care about these people why? Mai Trin, again, why create and give an entire dungeon to a character if you’re not going to develop her? Sadly, the best developed characters all year were Marcello and hobo-tron, and this is because they experienced real character growth over time that didn’t feel utterly contrived (this may very well be because they weren’t written in advance and actually evolved in response to content like real people!)

4. Too many subplots Dude. Really. We spend about 10 hours every two seeks on the living world. I think that fact alone justifies that story having the same sort of laser-like focus that the personal story did. Random side narratives might broaden the content, but the weaken the story. Image how much grander the southsun arc could have been if you’d spent a whole year on it. Imagine how much grander any single one of scarlet’s alliance sub-arcs could have been if you spent a year on it. Rapidly switching gears might give you a chance to show off a bunch of flashy stuff, but it weakens the story, and creates more asset production work for less narrative impact.

Also, I’d love an audio archive of the Living Story in the official Soundcloud XD It would help me “re-read” the game and help keep track of things. Like an audiobook.

Yes, I know, probably not priority number one, but it’d be a modest, practical way to start addressing the requests regarding re-experiencing the story. Seemingly simpler than designing fractal-like instances..? But idk, what is how do coding.

…all I know is, I’d give my main’s left thumb to re-hear Kasmeer’s sob story about her dad.

My top 3 points (no rating implied):

• Tell the story within your game and not via social media. If you need background on a character, try adding that info beforehand into the game (books, NPC dialogs).
• Build more upon existing Guild Wars Lore (Mursaat, Wizard’s Tower, Personal Story, etc).
• Make the story more plausible and consistent. I understand that there always might be some plotholes, but the Season 1 LS was literally full of it (see other threads in this forum).

Very well spoken, OP. I agree wholeheartedly.

Shriketalon.1937:

Greetings and salutations.

With Season 1 of the Living Story drawing to a close, it seems appropriate to offer review and reflection of everything that has come thus far. Sadly, there is much to consider, as the brand new path trod by Anet has many missteps and mishaps along the way.

Rather than talk about individual flaws, I thought it might be best to take a stab at the overall writing style of the Living Story and the narrative flaws it continues to exhibit. Plot holes come and go, individual complaints will always remain, but the best way to help Season 2 is to consider the pitfalls of Season 1 from a writing and gaming perspective. And so, I thought I would offer up a bit of constructive criticism in silly infographic format.

For your consideration, Fifteen Lessons From Fifteen Months of Scarlet Briar.

Extremely will written, with a Nice balance of wit and construtive criticism.
My only critic to you is that you were kinda…euphemistic on how bad the LS actually was.

I still Think that Collin and the higher ups really don’t understand how bad the LS was….

1. 12+ or not, Guild Wars is still Dark Fantasy
Living Story was, as the OP points out, a good building block for something better, but at its roots, Guild Wars 1 was a dark fantasy, despite some arguments against this. The setting should not be afraid to push boundaries, destroy those you love, places you care about, see characters you value fall to the dark side, or enemies redeemed. This is a setting where Dark must stand out for Light to truly shine, at its roots, 12+ or not, GW has always been a setting where tragedy goes hand in hand with triumph.

2. Use whats already there and represent it in game
Existing places serve as stronger roots to build from, than new things that we have no knowledge of, subtly is the key to introducing something new, such as how the Largos were introduced, a mysterious new species from a place we have yet to visit, this is the key to making new content interesting, leave clues, hints, teasers, but never actually throw it at people. People need speculation to enjoy the value of wanting more, otherwise it ruins the potential for speculation with exposition, which ultimately takes away the game’s core.
Basically, for this point, make more use of existing characters and places, don’t venture forth beyond them without first using them to introduce new things along the way, leaving clues as to what those things could be, over time.

3. Personal Vs Universal
This one needs to be separated into small points.
- Companions, are intended to be a personal thing, they are there to accompany the player and for the player to familiarize themselves with over good voice acted scenes of dialogue, great banter, character development for the companions because of the players actions. They are there to be useful too, agents that help you achieve your personal story and your day by day events. Companions, such as the new LS ones, unfortunately, while having the personality, lack the development, and equally the personal vibe that is needed to make them feel special, like they are part of a family, your family. This is the first objective.
- The second, is Personal Nemesis.
You need a personal nemesis to be someone you interact with in your personal story, a reoccurring secondary antagonist with underlings designed to meddle in your affairs, as stated in the OP’s points. You need someone that harms the companions above, or even turns a few to their side over the course of the game. They must act as someone that acts to hinder your goals of stopping dragons, and other threats to Tyria, for some unknown and mysterious agenda, or a malevolent goal of world destruction. A Personal Nemesis has to be someone I don’t want to hate out of character, but their cruel, sadistic, ruthless, malevolent and manipulative personality of which is hurting the people I care about and the places I value, is making me want to hurt them, deeply.
They must feel vocally and writing wise, actions wise, game wise, a threat that hurts you, personally.
That, is what a Personal, Nemesis is.

Only 3?? I think you (Bobby) should look at all of the issues since they are all relevant.

But if I had to choose the top 3 issues then they would be.

1,3 and 4.

1 probably hit me the hardest, the pacing of the story was horrible, no answers, promises of big reveals or “everything will be answered next chapter” which never was. I basically felt like a I was chasing the carrot but I never got it, not even at the end. That’s basically cruel, to be lend along all this time and even at the end – “you want to know why?” “NO! kill her” – kitten , you couldn’t of done a worse job of this if you tried.

3. I felt like a henchman employed by a team of girls whose job was just to slaughter the enemy.

4. It was all scarlet, she didn’t have any notable characters to support her, Aetherblade captains? you never talked to them at all, they barely featured. And since Scarlet was such a weak character she wasn’t able to carry the story on her own.

8 (support cast). I can’t stand the snobbish Kasmeer and the sassy Marjory. Those characters bug the hell out of me. So sick of having to be around these two lovers. I wish it was like the personal story where you could choose who to hang out with because I would NEVER pick those two. When Marjory dropped in that cheap dig at Braham “so you’re the ones who let Scarlet slip through your grasp?” immediately I thought what a cow! – I can’t stand those two. Kasmeer meanwhile -" eww warriors are smelly" really? I’m actually helping and all she talks about is the smell. Go away and pick out curtain for your love nest then Kasmeer.

Who created those two characters?!

1) Make us feel invested. A lot of the Scarlet story was pretty easy to ignore. The only things, in the end, that felt like they were “real” were the aftermath of the Tower of Nightmares and it’s still-lingering affects on those living in Kessex Hills, and the attack on Lion’s Arch. It would be good to pay more attention to what the payers are invested in. We saw more camaraderie in Lion’s Arch than we had seen in a lot of the Living Story up to that point, because to may of us Lion’s Arch was a sort of “home” for our game play, more so than a lot of the other cities tend to be (with the exception of Dwayna High Road in Divinity’s Reach).

2) More cause and effect and topical discussion would be nice as well. It’s nice to see that what the ‘big bad’ does has a lasting effect on the world as a whole. For example, the changing of some of the Renown Hearts in Kessex Hills to reflect the impact of the Tower (such as the fishermen in Triskell Quay). NPC chatter about the events transpiring in the world beyond the Heralds who get posted outside the gates would also be nice. It’s kind of hard to believe that no one in the cities or surrounding maps is really talking about the hundred-storey tower of death that magically appeared in the next province over, or that Lion’s Arch has been almost completely wiped off the map.

3) More well-constructed ‘bad guys’. With Scarlet it felt as though a lot of her ‘tragic past’ and other elements of her character were thrown in for the heck of it. Though her motivation and her endgame were eventually made clear, she was a Mary Sue 90% of the time. A Mary Sue being a term referring to a character that is given accolades that aren’t really necessary, who exists simply to exist. An example of a (really, really terrible) Mary Sue would be “this is my character, she’s tall and skinny and pretty and all the boys love her, and she’s really smart, and also she’s a princess”. Scarlet can be summed up in this fashion quite easily. The bad elements of her outweigh the solid ones, which is poor character design all around.

Just wanted to echo the sentiments of other posters; This is not just sound advice, it is the BEST advice I have ever seen given to a game dev. I also have to say you will have to address many of these issues going forward, at least 8 or so of them in the coming year if this game is to combat the coming competition. Heck, make these your new story mantra, engrave them in stone and hang them in your office break room, conference rooms, and writing/dev departments. I will point out the ones you need to fix to not just make the game better, but to actually FIX the game in the long run (which I feel are the most important, because they are acting as lead wights which bite into the flesh of your ankles as you trudge forward.)

#7, ‘Resolve the gap between the Living Story and the Personal story/existing world threds.’
This is by far the biggest crippling factor you are hitting, and it needs to be resolved. You worry about discontinuity, and are tip-toeing through minefields of contradiction. I can almost see the backtracking, the ‘oh, wait, these things we had planned conflict with existing personal story’, and the discarding of ideas because they conflicted. So much wasted effort, so much extra work. I know it’s hard, and will take a lot of work, but you need to take a firm, definitive, final stance. if the existing world is each a fixed point in time, you need to open new zones to continue telling the story (as most older MMOs do) and update old zones with temporal updates and side stories which occupy the down time (which fit into the given zone’s timeline). If not, you will probably have to make the personal storyline split now and forever from the current state of the world. Maybe there is a third option, but whatever it is, you need to make a decision that lets you move forward UNHINDERED. This will make points #4, 6, 8 and 10 much more manageable, as they were (i’m pretty sure) very much held back by this problem in season 1.

#14, ‘We are irrelevant, and that must change.’
Huge strides were taken in the last few updates towards this. DO NOT STOP HERE! If you want players to appreciate your living story as much as they did their personal story, you need to give it the same attention to their character. This ties into point #3 as well (‘characters should talk with people, not to them’). I feel the reason my character never spoke with scarlet was because that would mean I had to be voice acted, and that was too hard. It was mentioned somewhere else that ‘when a dev is giving a writer a word limit for writing (not even voiced script), that dev needs to be fired’. I would rather voice acting be relegated to cinematics and show up very rarely, but have my character speak, than to play the 3rd wheel in someone else’s story. This needs to be fixed, as it will fix many of your other problems.

and finally, #1, ‘The journey is more important than the destination’
I think this is one of the biggest things for the writers to learn, and I actually think they have in many ways. Just too late to effect a change this time around. Remember this for yourselves too as devs. I remember a quote about GW2 from a dev in it’s first 6 months, concerning the living story and why it would be better than an expansion. (paraphrasing) ‘With GW1, we had a very tight schedule to push out expansions every X years/months, and would always ultimately end up having to cut a lot of things. Moreover, the team would get really burnt out. The Living Story will let us go down all those paths this time, so we won’t be cutting things out like we did before. We built our own platform to make this a feasible goal’
Well, sorry to say it, but cutting out parts is just good editing, and if an expansion burnt you out, how did you expect perpetual development to be better? And it’s clear the platform was not built to meet these goals sufficiently. Moreover, players want more content, and so far the reaction to Living Story vs GW1 Expansions is very much a telling thing. I am not saying you have to drop the living story, but cut things that matter less, and get on with the good stuff when you can! And set goals for releases, to have a given amount of content in them. If you can’t keep up, then space them out, don’t make updates too small, or too temporary.

A final thought, it has been mentioned before that a way to replay parts of the LS is needed. This is the honest truth, and such a system could double over to the personal story. Players could be ‘suffering amnesia’ and personal story parts which have been overwritten by the living story are them remembering the past. This would take some reworking, but may offer a solution to two problems with one stone.

Definitely address the issue of the player as involved in the living story. I know some have argued that they prefer to be an uninvolved grunt, and this will likely be a divisive issue simply by virtue of the game being an MMO. However, by committing to the personal story, you have set a precedent that the character is in fact a part of the world and should be treated as such. It doesn’t matter if there are millions upon millions of other players, the simple fact is that the player character is the set of eyes through which the player sees the world. This makes them a significant character in the mind of the player.

On a related point; don’t be afraid to use your existing heroes. You have the Three Orders- powerful organizations that adding depth to could not hurt. Beyond that, you have the various races and factions throughout the world all with their own heroes and it would not be a bad thing to bring them into play. It was weird that there wasn’t more of Logan Thackeray or other Seraph investigators in the aftermath of the Clockworks fiasco. The Queen and bunch of nobles were very nearly killed in the incident, and Divnity’s Reach… hired a PI. That’s not realistic. This is the kind of thing nations go to war over. Its sort of why nations have armies in the first place.

It isn’t a bad thing for the villain factions to have to struggle and finagle their way through the existing powers that be. It makes the villain seem more realistic and allows us to relate to them, and if they really do overcome the odds it makes them seem that much more formidable. We get a sense of who they are by how they choose to overcome the opposition and how they react when seriously pressed. You miss out on that when they steamroll everything until the heroes press the self destruct button. I also agree that we needed more of Scarlet’s Lieutenants. Plenty of missed opportunities when you consider the potential of who they were, how they met Scarlet and why they chose to follow her, and what effect following her had on them. It would be good to see how their personalities would play off of each other. Would some of them bicker? Is one a prankster that gets on the nerves of the others? Do they play and joke around like old friends, or is the alliance barely held together by a common goal and constantly in danger of falling apart? This would open up potentially epic moments. Opportunities for a heartbreaking betrayal if one of the leaders is unexpectedly left to burn, or an epic moment when one of the leaders saves his comrade even though he acts like he would rather see him die in a fire. Maybe one has a starscream type moment. “Oh no, Scarlet totally accidentally died, completely by accident, I guess I’ll have to take over now!” It will make their interactions with the players that much more meaningful in the long run, and could make interactions with the npc characters more interesting.

I’ve only read page one and it’s past my bedtime so I will just say that Shriketalon, you have a rare gift for combining fantastic ideas with even more fantastic presentation.

If you wrote it, I’d be fascinated by Southsun’s travertine deposits.

Kudos to the OP. Brilliant. I actually got emotional reading it and laughed a few times as well. I’ve found so much to hate about Living Story from a purely game play and development resource perspective, that I lost site of how badly it also fails at story.

I firmly believe the entire concept has failed. An amateurish story poorly adapted to the game in which it resides, paired with temporary content that has added zero value to the game for returning players or those who decide to ignore the story? Well, that’s just a horrible waste of development resources no matter how one looks at it.

If LS had somehow managed to provide some value as an actual story, that might have slightly counterbalanced the negatives associated with the concept. It did not. Seeing it laid out in this very accurate point by point critique, which, if anything, bent over backwards to lessen the sting in order to increase it’s chances at being seen as constructive criticism, made me realize one thing: The Story of Living Story is exactly what a D&D player might expect from a bad ten year old newb Dungeon Master attempting to run his first campaign. That really sums up the entire effort in as concise a way as possible.

Looking at the developers replies, I’m actually just as pessimistic as ever moving forward. Blaming technical limitations for really bad storytelling and lackluster content is a mind blowing response. We have all seen story telling and content much, much better in games with very primitive game systems and tiny, underfunded development teams, essentially since there has even been such a thing as computer gaming.

There are vast multitudes of computer games with extremely compelling stories, paired with meaty, fulfilling game content, many of which were built using tech that would be laughable today. Heck, there are still small independents that pump out games that look like they were made 15 years ago, but still manage to find an audience based on the strength of the storytelling.

Technical limitations may limit the type of content that can economically be produced in support of some grand story telling ideas. There are a lot of movies being made today, with the perfection and reduced of CGI effects, that just couldn’t have been made twenty years ago, while doing justice to the story being told. That doesn’t mean that only today can good stories be told, in fact many bemoan that special effects too often substitute for good storytelling.

Tip for Arenanet, if Season One was somewhat near the best you could produce given current technology and available resources, then Living Story is clearly just not a concept for this time and for this game. You guys had already produced tons of innovations in game content design and delivery with the core game which are sustainable with your tech and resources. Why not get back to that, instead of pursuing a fantastical pipe dream that has failed on so many counts?

Blaming extremely bad story telling on technical limitations is just one more thing about Living Story that leaves me just dumbfounded. If a story can’t be properly told within the confines of the game and the limitations of your resources and technology, there are an infinite number of other stories that should be able to be presented properly within the game and paired with compelling content.

GW2 , with it’s associated reputation, payroll, manpower, revenue potential and other resources is not the platform for trying to realize someone’s adolescent fantasies of the ultimate, (in reality very bad), D&D campaign storyline. Season 1 of Living Story would have been just as complete a failure as story in a medium where the only limitations are those of the imagination.

BobbyStein.2315:

I’d like to echo Colin’s sentiments. Thanks to the OP and everyone else for posting your constructive feedback here. We’re always evaluating our past work and looking for ways to improve our future releases. Sometimes those improvements may come in the form of developing new technology to support our vision or improve the player experience. Other times it means evolving our writing and game design processes. In other cases, resource and scheduling changes are necessary to support the additional workload. The potential solutions will vary depending on the challenge in front of us.

Part of the development process is prioritization, so I’d like to know what you feel are the highest impact items you think would improve our storytelling delivery. What are your top three requests?

geez.. that`s tough to narrow down.. so without a particular order:

1. Have the cast matter
After thinking about it for a while i realized that the B-Iconics that were introduced and developed actually do not really matter in the main-plot.
While they are there, they are only reacting to problems or are there “because the plot says so”/“fan-service”.
The only character that in my opinion provided any means to bring down Scarlet in the last LS was only Majory (and subsequently Kasmeer, but that`s only because she is her sidekick) and even her “parts” felt forced, since everything she has done could and should have been done by someone more qualified.
While i know why it was her doing everything iconic character cough, the world should have been much smarter then having her “figuring out” so late towards the end (The priory had this stuff for month and no one was able to put the pieces together?)

2. An intelligent world
Yes, the “idiot ball” that was being tossed and the subsequently suspension of disbelief that was expected of us was just too much.
This is a fantasy world, where technology and magic co-exists. Even if something unforseen happens, there should be several specialists out there to deal with these problems.
We even saw one of these jump into action at the queens jubilee as he “quickly” (after several annoying “invasion grind” for us players who just wanted the story -_-) broke into Scarlets transportation system.
Something like this was never followed up on. It would have been the perfect way to do a counter attack.
Subsequently no one in the world seemed to really care. Rythlock only send out one person after Scarlet (Rox) and even though he was investigating the probes, the presence overall was lackluster.
It makes me wonder what kind of threadlevel Scarlet was in the end, because even after she attacked the queen of the humans, there were no special unit out to hunt her.
(btw. it would have been much more interesting to see a team actively hunt Scarlet down. Actually following clues and push Scarlet into a corner. )
Overall the world felt “stupid” and “unintersted” in the whole ordeal till she finaly came down and crashed into LA.

3. Do not push the “mystery”
That is an annoying one for me. Please do not push for “mysteries” when they could have been easily explained.
You have the forums, you see which questions pop up and are waiting to be answered.
Even after the LS concluded there are still so many questions open which you told us would be revealed by the end of the story.
Seeking forumposts with a little hint to the problem, obscure interviews, etc. do not help.
I know you love us theorycrafting, being intruiged, but be ready ton answer these questions at the end.
This is even more needed if the story has already concluded and the next is coming up.
Please be ready to wrap everything up, a few questions are okay to be carried over to the next story (if they get answered there of course) but not if you never intend to do so.
(yes, it is a little plead to go into the forums, lore and lw and collect the questions asked there to answer them.)
It mis much more frustrating with the pace of the first LS which was just too long and often to short in content (storywise), so it just dragged on and felt more like a slap in the face in the if there are still many “mysteries”.

That are some of the top of my head, that bug me at the moment.

My suggestions ended up being… really long. I have a verbosity problem, but given how much help the Living Story needs, I figured I needed to be as explicit and detailed as possible. If it’s too long, feel free to disregard it or delete it or (best option:) let me know and I’ll try to cut it down so it will actually be read. Here we go!

Since we were asked for feedback, I’ll give my three cents. All of these essentially fall under the umbrella of “show, don’t tell.” That’s not even a suggestion; it’s a necessity, a basic law of writing and especially of game design because of the interactive and visual elements. If you can interact and you can see things, then sitting around not being able to interact and just being told things (and sometimes even being told things that aren’t what you see, as in that Cogs-awful intro to the Tower of Nightmares where Marjory talked like she was reading aloud from a badly-written book and described things in a way that didn’t match up with what was happening on the screen) is simply agonizing.

It should go without saying, then, that providing information that really is integral to the game’s story anywhere that is not within the game is a bad idea. The truly supplemental short stories that illuminate and enhance the game, such as the origin story of Mr. Sparkles, are great. The Scarlet-related short stories, which were a sorry attempt to try to make Scarlet into an actual character and not a cartoonish mess, failed because when something that is depicted (intentionally or unintentionally) and something that is told to us conflict, we believe what we see, not what we read. Scarlet was portrayed with no personality to speak of, so believing that she could even have a backstory was a challenge, much less matching the short stories with the grating caricature of a villain we saw on-screen.

1.) Introduce characters by placing them in the world before they become part of the story.

I’ve said several times on the forums that I really like ANet’s small-scale writing, at least that which is separate from the Personal and Living Stories; I love talking to minor NPCs all over Tyria, or just hanging around them and listening to their conversations, because their writing is generally very good. Not only are they funny, but these tiny interactions flesh out the world, giving you a better sense of different races’ cultures, what life is like in Tyria, what’s going on locally and in the rest of the world, and so on. It’s a form of storytelling that works very well in video games, because it’s brief, it’s interactive (either because you’re talking to the NPC yourself or you’ve placed yourself in the area where the conversation happens, and are able to leave whenever you want), and it’s demonstrative rather than simply descriptive: rather than just outright saying “Asura are highly competitive and protective of their ideas,” you have a couple different conversations between Asura in Rata Sum in which one reacts with hostility or caginess to a simple greeting from another.

That’s why I was baffled by the fact that although Scarlet trained with the Hylek, worked with the (very racist) Inquest (which is an impressive feat in and of itself, given that she is NOT AN ASURA, and you’d think somebody would mention that), blazed through Dynamics (my character’s college) in a year… I’d never heard of her until suddenly she was there at the Queen’s Jubilee! I can understand most Asura keeping mum about a Sylvari exceeding their own race’s students at their own colleges out of sheer embarrassment, but certainly at least somebody would mention her, if only in passing. Her past was detailed only in short stories that were not even integrated with the game at all until nearly the end of her arc, and we never had any places or people to associate with her backstory; it was like she existed entirely separate from the world until she just showed up as the most amazingest perfectest Scary Sue villain of all time who everybody knows about of course! Then, when we did finally get some NPCs to flesh out her story through in-game dialogue (instead of “supplemental” material that was far more than supplemental), they spoke about her 1) as if everyone either already knew everything about her or knew nothing about her at all, and 2) with an out-of-character reverence (very few Asura would call a Sylvari “brilliant” without adding a qualifier— “for a Sylvari, of course,” or “she was Asura-trained, after all”) that smacked very uncomfortably of Mary Sue-dom.

1 continued

I had the same problem with Trahearne. Unless you play a certain step of the Sylvari Personal Story in which you meet him, you have almost no clue who he is until suddenly your best buddy in your Order is dead, and now you’re expected to develop a bond with this new guy instantly! He seems to know everyone, but you’ve never heard about him before! Sure, he was off in Orr, but the transition from “far away and never heard of” to “he is in charge and replacing your buddy who died” is far too abrupt. While the fact that it’s wartime and you have to act quickly certainly applies during the Battle of Claw Island, the reason doesn’t seem to be that there’s a time crunch within the game, but that there was a time crunch during development and there just wasn’t time to create content introducing the player to Trahearne. The sense of urgency is also greatly diminished by the fact that the story steps are so many character levels apart, so it feels all the more abrupt. Interstitial chapters, perhaps involving interacting with Trahearne more immediately after Claw Island but before the next story step, and maybe an interstitial chapter involving getting to meet him beforehand, would create a chance to turn him into more than a piece of cardboard who got thrust into a leadership role and develop his actual character through those all-important but seemingly insignificant little conversations and small-scale interactions. (Of course, this thread is about Living Story, but Trahearne’s part in Personal Story can still illustrate what problems there are that need to be changed.)

2.) Study people, and make the people you create act like people.

This seems to be a far bigger problem for Living Story than it does for other parts of the game, perhaps because of the time crunches you put yourselves under with the relatively rapid pace of the updates (an issue I’ll elaborate on later). For example, Tybalt is a person. He has goals, fears, quirks, flaws, redeeming and endearing qualities. Scarlet, on the other hand, is a caricature of a person. Her qualities are so exaggerated— so VERY smart that she sped through every Asuran college! So VERY charismatic that she managed to join the incredibly racist Inquest and didn’t end up dissected, then persuaded a bunch of xenophobic or at best xeno-suspicious groups to work together! So VERY powerful that a threat from her could put any of her minions in line! And even though we’ve never heard of her before, everyone immediately cares about her and declares her brilliant. People do not use the words Mary Sue (warning, link is to TV Tropes and may be highly addictive and result in compulsive link-clicking and lost hours) to describe her lightly: she is set up as too impossibly brilliant at everything she does, faces absolutely no consequences for her actions (if a Sylvari tries to coerce the Inquest, she will not come out of that without a few scars— heck, if she’d had scars and injuries and traumas from every single group of crazy violent villains she’d tried to take control over, then I might have believed she’d actually done it and even had some respect for her getting through adversity like that), and has literally no flaws (besides being evil and trying to wake up a dragon, but she gets to wash her hands of that one because it wasn’t really her! She was losing a fight for her own mind!). Trahearne is less obnoxiously Gary Stu-ish but still has some troubling symptoms: everyone knows him, he’s given a position of great power soon after you meet him, and he’s basically treated as The Chosen One.

When characters don’t start out as cartoons, they have a disturbing tendency to gain and lose aspects of their character, or more frequently to have their defining features and their goals and desires exaggerated over time, a process called Flanderization (warning, another TV tropes link, use at your circadian rhythm’s own risk), until they begin to get cartoony themselves.

2 continued

Given what has been said in certain news and blog posts, such as the one about Job-o-Tron’s progression into Hobo-Tron and Ho-Ho-Tron and onward, I suspect that some of this issue is caused by the frequent passing of writing responsibilities from person to person during the course of the Living Story. I theorize that Hero-Tron evolved in a good way as he was passed from writer to writer, because there was no pressure on the writer taking him on next to keep him incredibly consistent with his previous incarnation— in fact, transformation was much of what defined him. Characters such as Marjory and Kasmeer, on the other hand, got certain aspects of their personalities exaggerated because the second writer wanted to keep them consistent and didn’t want to step on the first writer’s toes. Successive writers couldn’t make them into dynamic characters by changing them at all because of this desire for consistency, and even tended to overcompensate by stressing aspects the first writer had assigned them— so Marjory got more snide until she was no longer charmingly snarky but just plain mean, and her Noir schtick was ridiculously inconsistent from update to update; Kasmeer got sillier until she was almost embarrassingly grating; their personalities were eventually subsumed almost entirely to the fact that they are OMG LESBIANS!!! (never mind that Caithe had already been there, done that, and it was part of how her character grew and changed rather than a thing that made her character fade— in other words, like any sexuality, it is part of who she is, not what defines her); and by the end of the Living Story, Rox and Braham could only talk about one issue between them and each of them only had one goal.

Of course, this is just a guess; I don’t know how y’all work. But it seems like it might help to have certain writers take on certain characters for the entire duration, or perhaps very close collaboration when one writer succeeds another so there’s no actual “handing off” but instead a gradual shift.

Corollary of 2.) Depict the inevitable disintegration or at least drastic restructuring of the Pact.

The last few Living Story updates provide a very strong basis for why characters who act like people would begin to seriously question the usefulness of the Pact and particularly the abilities of its leadership. The Pact had a number of reasons to want to protect Lion’s Arch.

1: It was made abundantly clear before the attack on Lion’s Arch that Scarlet was attempting to tamper with ley lines. If dragons consume magic, as is conclusively proven during the course of the Living Story and thus common knowledge to the Pact, then anything that affects the ley lines should be very troubling to the Pact because it could have unforeseen and drastic effects even on the dragons that are currently awake (the fact that it actually woke up another dragon notwithstanding). I don’t expect the Pact to have been able to predict Scarlet’s intentions, but I do expect an organization with the express purpose of fighting dragons to be concerned that whatever Scarlet’s goal might be, in the process her actions could have serious effects on the dragons.

2: Even without taking dragons into consideration, Lion’s Arch is the major trade hub of the currently known Tyrian world, so its destruction would mean severe disruption of the Pact’s supply lines in its operations around Tyria, drastically decreasing the Pact’s efficiency and effectiveness and even causing problems like rampant illness due to undernourished soldiers and scarce medical supplies.

3. A dragon has already attacked Lion’s Arch and Claw Island, and was rebuffed because Claw Island was held long enough and Lion’s Arch didn’t fall. If Lion’s Arch were to fall, that would create a serious vulnerability on the Tyrian coastline, allowing any other dragon, or even just the unled hordes of Risen, easy access to the Tyrian mainland and an angle of attack on all three Order headquarters.

4. The headquarters of every Order in the Pact are close to Lion’s Arch, and especially easily accessible when the attacker has airships for crying out loud! Given that Scarlet’s motives were bizarrely unclear to people who you think would know better given that they live in a land full of Dragons, the Pact should have been seriously concerned that her plans might have included an assault on any, or all three, of the Order headquarters.

corollary to 2 continued (my ears, this is even longer than I thought)

Despite all this, an NPC explicitly states that the Pact chose not to intervene in Lion’s Arch, not that they were so desperately stretched thin that they couldn’t, or that they were prevented from doing so some other way. However, such a potentially (well, not even potentially any more) devastating oversight can still be explained: the Pact is led by a man who has no military experience and whose expertise lies solely in Orr. THAT explains it all perfectly. The heads of the Orders, because they are people who act like people, cannot agree on how to defend Lion’s Arch until it’s too late. Trahearne, their leader, does not see the inherent danger to the Pact in Scarlet’s actions because he is so intently focused on Orr, and without his Player-Character-advisor there to advise him, fails to ensure that they cooperate; and so the Pact is unable to organize the deployment of their megalasers, which could have turned the tide of the fight much earlier by taking Scarlet’s ships right out of the sky, or to use any of their other resources.

However, during the fight, the Orders did contribute individually, and very effectively: the Vigil organized a temporary Lion’s Arch in their own headquarters with military efficiency; Whispers operatives within Lion’s Arch saved countless citizens who couldn’t make it all the way to the exits; and the Priory ran med tents (were the med tends Priory-based?) and one would assume they were able to handle the massive project of organizing and returning lost belongings and heirlooms due to their experience cataloguing research and dig sites.

All this combines to make many of the Orders’ members come to one conclusion: “Why do we even need the Pact, anyway?” This creates fertile ground for story-driving conflicts as the heads of the Orders have to decide whether they’re pro- or anti-Pact, those within each Order who disagree with their leader’s position start to back candidates for their replacement, and Destiny’s Edge 2.0— or even better, Destiny’s Edge 3.0 (Hero-Tron, Canach, Lord Faren, and Evon Gnashblade: the Second Chances Dream Team. You know you love it.)— has to try to fix the mess as best they can, with the aid of the player of course, as the threat of a new dragon awaking looms. It also creates the potential to make Trahearne a far more sympathetic character if you play it right, as he realizes what a horrible mistake he’s made and starts to doubt his abilities as a leader, letting us see the person side of him that’s not just “Oh he’s being humble, how virtuous!” but actually flawed.

I suggest reading some John Wyndham and other writers of apocalyptic fiction in the same vein to get some ideas on how to write leaders trying to react to catastrophes, sometimes failing and sometimes succeeding, and how ordinary people react to the same catastrophes. (The Kraken Wakes is a particularly relevant one when it comes to large organizations failing to protect citizens from attacks by monstrous forces they’ve never seen before, like Scarlet’s armies and I’m sure like the new dragon’s minions will be.) It’s certainly more fun that studying history, although that’s probably a good idea too if you want characters who act like people. Of course, you have to have the time to study how people react to things in order to write them realistically, which brings me to my next suggestion.

3.) Give yourselves time to create high-quality, properly completed content, and give us time to experience it.

There really isn’t any reason for the Living Story to update every two weeks. Past Living Story updates were very obviously rushed, unfinished, incredibly bugged, and just generally suffering from not enough time being put into their creation. The bugs combined with the short durations often meant that we had very little time to experience the content after the bugs were ironed out. How many days’ worth of Legendary Watchknight fights were there after they had finally been debugged and adjusted? Not enough. And if you happen to get sick, or go on vacation, or go do disaster relief work and vaccinate babies in an area with no running water, let alone Internet access… it’s easy to miss a large chunk of a two-week time period, or miss it entirely.

3 continued this is the last part I swear

I think cohesiveness might have been another casualty of time crunches, although it certainly improved as the Living Story went on. Gone are the days of an achievement reading “help Rox track the dragon” that has nothing to do with talking to or assisting Rox in any way, that just involves looking at a footprint and not even having to tell her about it, and Rox’s presence there at all being a surprise unless you’ve looked at the achievements tab. I’m certainly grateful for that. But as mentioned above with character development issues, longer periods between Living Story installments would also allow for greater cohesiveness not just within each installment, but between the installments, allowing more time for communication and collaboration.

It would be much better to have well-written, well-acted, well-planned, cohesive Living Story updates that come once a month, than for it to continue at the average level of quality throughout the last Living Story at a rate of an update per week. (As a side note, it would be especially nice if you’d give us a timer for Living Story achievements resembling the Daily and Monthly achievement timers; it was sometimes hard to figure out whether certain achievements would last for a month or two weeks with some of the updates. In fact, greater communication regarding what’s staying and what’s not staying during any given transition between LS installments (Heirlooms, hmmm?) would be greatly appreciated.)

Finally, longer Living Story periods would reduce the issues with items that you can only get during that period being hard to get for a lot of people who have real lives (unlike me, as I can sit here writing about them on their behalf). In fact, it would be ideal not to have things like that at all; I can understand certain items being incredibly rare or difficult to get, and the process of constructing Legendaries is a good example of that; but account-bound items that are no longer obtainable, ever? It seems unfair, and I’m saying this as someone who actually has almost every account-bound Living Story item. When people ask how to get an awesome Sclerite Karka Shell like mine, it depresses me to have to tell them that they can’t. This might be a tad off-topic, but I do think a way to obtain previous Living Story items through great effort and skill— perhaps very high-level Fractals that depict the events? people seem to want higher-level Fractals anyway— would be a very good thing to have.

Of course, giving yourselves more time to work on things isn’t just limited to Living Story. A certain aspect of a certain upcoming patch was pretty obviously rushed so hard it threw up from all the g-forces (cough cough town clothes what the ever-loving Alchemy cough cough). You don’t have to do absolutely everything all at once. Allowing yourself more time to do things right the first time will prevent you having to waste ridiculous amounts of time fixing things that weren’t done right, like Watchknight scaling, Scarlet holo fight cinematics not playing… and other aspects of the game. (cough. cough. COUGH.)

Those are my, er, three cents that ended up being more like four or five. If you make it through this wall of text without your eyeballs drying up and falling out… I hope it helps?

All done now. Sorry for taking up most of a page. You asked for feedback, and you received! It’s still… technically three things. Ish.

Sorry ANet, but you needed that wall o’ text.

I have just two things that I think really matter to me for story quality… that aren’t there already. The supporting cast (Rox, Taimi, et al) are already there and you should continue to make use of them.

1. There are a lot of things to cover in GW2 – probably need to keep going at a decent clip. The game might have a lifetime of maybe 10 years if it’s doing great, and there are a lot of stories to tell in that time. Mordremoth showing up was important, but I don’t think it justified 15 months’ story just on that.

2. Using what’s already in the lore where possible. Sometimes you need to make up new stuff to tell the story you want to, but Scarlet went absolutely wild with it – a new faction every couple months, the watchknights that seemed to come from nowhere, the ley-lines which seemed to come from nowhere, that drill the size of the Puget Sound that she managed to keep hidden somehow while it was under construction…? Not saying villains shouldn’t be able to surprise you, but it feels less cheap when you can explain what they did without resorting to “it’s magic!”.

I forgot to add to my original post, so I’ll just append another here …

I’d like the writing team to put more thought into adding elements of the Living Story with every game update. For example, I still don’t understand what Scarlet had to do with the Edge of the Mists. EotM would have been fine as a release on its own, but the Scarlet angle came off as nonsensical.

And let’s not forget the Thaumanova Fractal. Having Scarlet pop up in that just added to the no-so-exaggerated feeling that she was responsible for every bad, evil thing happening in the world. Seriously, if the player base had chosen the Abbadon Fractal instead, would the writing team have found a way to shoehorn Scarlet into that too? I really do wonder.

Not every update requires a tie-in to the Living Story, and we’ve seen that with the Super Adventure Box, which thankfully Scarlet never invaded.

If giving our characters a voice again isn’t possible, you could create something like the dialogue boxes we had in GW1. You know, the ones with the picture of the character speaking. That would make me feel like my character is a part of the conversation going on, it’s kind of dull to listen to the other characters talk while mine is silent.

BobbyStein.2315:

Part of the development process is prioritization, so I’d like to know what you feel are the highest impact items you think would improve our storytelling delivery. What are your top three requests?

1. Have the villains grow with us:
Scarlet’s main problem to me, right off the bat, was the fact that her story was thrown in well after she made her debut. If she were a higher ranked flunky to the true evil mastermind, I wouldn’t have been upset. Then when we depose of the main baddie she could have climbed the ranks and been a true threat.

I kept looking for a new thread to be built alongside this existing story.
Yes we’re dealing with Scarlet, but who else is coming along for the next season?
Who am I supposed to look out for in the future?

At the moment I can only think of Mai Trin, maybe Canach but he’s turned over a new leaf. Please pardon that pun.

2. Tell within the medium:
As the later parts of the story came along, I began to see this and it was good.
You put in strange probes, they built up some mystery, then we found out their use.
Before then we would read a blog, maybe something outside the game.
That isn’t good storytelling and we know you can provide good stories.

If there was going to be a big Clock lady in the game, maybe the earlier releases could have some events where resources were stolen from areas on the map.
Have us ponder why the (insert Faction) needed so much metal?
Then when big Momma Clock drops in there’s that sudden “oh…there’s where the metal went…drats.”

This goes along with the “grow the villain” point because sometimes the story just didn’t feel connected.

3.Spin from GW1’s lore, GW2’s books, or the Personal Story:
You have so much to work with from either pool, don’t be scared to dip from the well!
A good example is the Zephyrites. I love them more than anything else you made from all these releases. Want to know the secret? They connected us to the dwarfs and the death of Glint!

That gives old hands like me a nostalgic shiver plus newbies a chance to go back and read up on what the fuss is all about. Maybe they’ll start falling in love with the lore a bit more as a result.

Tower of Nightmares had a decent tip of the hat. We fought our comrades from the order and the Pact leader Trahearne. Also there was mention of Scarlet’s comment about the Infinity Ball for those who took that path.

These are good touches. They help remind us that Living Story is another continuation of the overall story you are trying to tell.

We need more of these. Have the bandits rise up against the Queen using the Ebonhawke seps as cover. Let us find some ancient relic from GW1 that old hands remembered well.

On a separate, but funny, note in the Personal Story there was a nice nod to Kormir at one point. When the Asurans were uncovering some artifacts they found a Kormir head statue and decided it was junk. That was humorous and a nice nod to the past.

Aedelric.1287:

1 No more exclusive social media lore pieces, if it goes up outside the game it should also be put into the game. I am not a fan of the way it currently is and I would really like to see it changed, perhaps have a section on the hero panel for short stories and such.

2 More stand alone pieces, not everything has to be tied together by a flimsy thread creating a convoluted mess of a story, one of the best updates we had was Bazaar of the Four Winds and that was essentially a story on it’s own. Do not be afraid to leave something as a mystery, give us events that are part of different stories, make the whole world come alive, not just things that revolve around one character.

3 Less temporary more permanent content, the reasoning behind this is obvious and I know it is much requested already.

I really appreciate the effort you guys do with the Living Story, but it does need a lot of work. So long as you really do take the OP’s post to heart then you can not go wrong.

This is what I had in mind as well. Also I would like to add one of my own.The dragon should be a part of the living story. With the talked about ability to revisit old events (Anet in favor of) and making the dragon fight permanent it should work fine.

The personal story should be about personal character development. Say I wanted to be a Priestess of Lyssa, would that be possible? Start off with a small number of branches that individualize the characters in their own story. When a satisfying number is reached add expansions on the different stories. This is how the personal story should feel (at least to me). It should be about the players character (as it was lvl 3-20) not about a dragon.

Another thing I support is building on the lore you have. Create stories with the Mursaat, White Mantle, Jotun or I liked the idea of Lady Glaive and her ghost ship causing havoc.

What isn’t cool, though, is that some players will never be able to experience taking down these dragons if they’re only available in the living story. Three years from now, two or more dragons could be wiped out: and a new player is now in the fight for a third.

What about those who want to play the hologram fight again? Marionette? Or just see the story of it all?

MakubeC.3026:

I see many people want their character to be the Hero of Tyria, and have statues on the behalf even when they know the players next to them are also Commanders of the Pact.

I also see many people who are more into story details that would rather be someone of help but not THE commander. To be a compannion of help to Destiny’s Orphans and yet not to be a MEMBER of it.

How could we get this resolved?

*I believe this is due to a culture clash. In some cultures, people are taught to be leaders and individuals (like Americans). In other cultures, people are taught to follow the crowd for the sake of the community’s goals (like people from Japan).

Due to the situation with the LS, the most important thing we can do for the game’s storyline is make the PC the center of attention. If a person doesn’t want their character to be the focus of the PS / LS, then they can avoid playing those parts of the game. That’s what alot of heavy RPers do. Most Heavy RPers are folks who want to play the ordinary people or followers (merchants, nobles, servants, etc). Heavy RPers are in the minority on GW2’s NA Roleplay server, Tarnished Coast. Majority of OOC players I’ve spoken to want to play the hero.

Vael Victus.2654:

What isn’t cool, though, is that some players will never be able to experience taking down these dragons if they’re only available in the living story. Three years from now, two or more dragons could be wiped out: and a new player is now in the fight for a third.

What about those who want to play the hologram fight again? Marionette? Or just see the story of it all?

That’s why the dragon fights are permanent, exactly as I said in my post. New players will always be able to fight every dragon after they are released.

Before I post my top 3, I’d like to thank Bobby and Colin for chiming in on this post. It takes thick skin to read some of the criticism you guys get here, but I’m sure we say it because we love the game you’ve made and we want to help you make it better for us, your customers and fan base. I’m a Guild Wars vet since just after Factions was released, and played Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North (and still do). So here are my top 3, in no particular order:

1) More permanent content. Putting the F&F dungeon (or a small portion of it anyway) in Fractals was a good idea. However…

Player 1: Let’s do the Flame and Frost dungeon!
Player’s Party: Yeah! One of us never got to see it, so let’s do it!
Party enters Fractals, gets Aquatic Ruins, Snowblind, Volcanic, Solid Ocean Fractal (which I LOVE as a nod to Factions).
Player 1: Let’s do it again and do the Flame and Frost dungeon!
Players Party: Umm… that took us almost 2 hours, and we didn’t get the F&F dungeon. But, ok, one of us is new and never got to see it.
Party enters Fractals, gets Swampland, Urban Battlegrounds, Cliffside, Captain Mai Trin Boss Fractal.

Five hours after the party had the desire to do the F&F dungeon, and they never got to do it.

2) “Endgame” rewards, or in this case, End Story rewards, with NO RNG, similar to what we got for completing Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall. We knew that completing each would net us, in order, a Deldrimor Talisman, Amulet of the Mists, and Book of Secrets that we could exchange for a weapon of our choice that would show others that we’d completed that campaign. We didn’t have to HOPE we got it from a random loot drop. We knew what we were working towards. Giving us that opportunity for the next LS chapter would be a very nice thing indeed. And make it best-in-slot (i.e. ascended), just like the original Guild Wars weapons were.

3) No more events that requite the full attention of everyone on the map. All 150 players, or fail. Let’s take the Knights as the best example. EVERYONE in LA had to do the knights when they come up. 50 people on each knight means you have a CHANCE of success. Oh, but wait…. 10 are farming heirlooms, 12 are farming champs, 5 are working on dailies and killing whatever is needed there and don’t have time for the knights event, 3 are AFK and still thinking they’ll be leeching rewards somehow, 7 are still looking for Peter cuz that’s the only achievement they need for the meta, and 3 are doing jumping puzzles and vistas so they can compare screenies from “pre-searing LA”. So the Knights event is short 40 people and doesn’t scale down, leading to all the complaints. Many times on Ehmry Bay, people didn’t even make the attempt because they knew it would fail, since we didn’t have a full zone. Large scale events CAN work, like Marionette, but there weren’t too many other options in Lornar’s Pass to distract players. Getting back to the F&F dungeon, that was great because we could go in with a party of our choice, and we had no one but ourselves to blame if we failed. Now, an Elder Dragon would, of course, be a different story, but please don’t give people a choice of seven or eight other things to do in the zone while it’s up.

ferr.6403:

2. Please less Angel McCoy writing.

I have to agree.

I really don’t like how the characters have been developed. The obvious lesbian relationships being pushed in our faces again and again at the expense of the story. The clear imbalance of males vs females, and how they are represented. It became very clear to me when watching the last scene at the dead end bar and how there were 4 females and one male sitting wounded in the corner in which they just poked fun at. It was so obvious that I didn’t really pay much attention to the story I was thinking “what the hell? I feel like I’ve just stepped into some girls club and they are just poking fun at Braham for the sounds he makes or how he’s too dumb to understand Taimi”
And then behold who walks in.. Marjory’s brother? No of course not, has to be another female character, her sister.

Getting a bit sick of it. We need another style of writing to balance this feminist stuff.

I applaud the OP (and agree with most of what he said, especially the ‘Lieutenants are the lifeblood of an organisation’ section, which put into words what I’d been thinking myself). Applaud the devs who have taken notice too.

Thobek.1730:

I really don’t like how the characters have been developed. The obvious lesbian relationships being pushed in our faces again and again…

…Getting a bit sick of it. We need another style of writing to balance this feminist stuff.

Hrmm, I wonder why nobody ever says that kind of stuff when a game features a heavily pro-Male ratio, or “obvious hetero relationships”. You know… like the majority of other games.

The ratio of men to women characters doesn’t bother me too much.
Though i will mention that yes there’s one guy to four women, but such a thing can be changed by introducing more characters later.
Even the old Destiny’s Edge had more women in the ratio, 3 to 2 (post Snaff), either way it isn’t that much of a factor.

What I’m concerned over is how each are portrayed.
Out of the group I’d probably say Rox is the most developed at this point.
Jory might be the second most, with Kasmeer getting honorable mention because she stood up to Scarlet.
Braham seems to be stepping back a bit now, which isn’t a great representation of the Norn.
Taimi is too early to tell, but I’m glad even she recognizes that Scarlet wasn’t totally worth emulating.

If I had to complain about one thing in the epilogue, it wouldn’t have been the “Uh-huh”. It was how Braham is essentially crying over his supposed dead legend all because of an injury.

Seriously?! This is the Bro-ham I’ve been traveling with now? I don’t mind the “Wreck it Ralph” comedy a bit in this scene. We need a humorous moment or two. I, however, call total Dolyak spit on him… whining about how his legend is in the water closet because of this.

Skaalds can gloss over that, people retelling his legend won’t fixate on it.
He helped take down a giant drill of Doom and took on the Scarlet Army.
Those deeds alone will get him free drinks from Queensdale to the Grove.
The injury will just be a conversation starter, he’s a blasted Norn! He should know this!

I hope he does grow out of it and realizes it isn’t such a big deal. We don’t need our new Norn representative being a crybaby. He’s shown growth, moved on from Ottila, and even thought about Rox’s needs over his own. Let’s not have him slide backwards.

Bravo, Shriketalon! Bravo! Excellent points!

The comparison between the Personal and Living stories remind me of SWTOR’s. The (SWTOR) personal story was excellent, but afterwards, you just melt into the throng of other characters who just accomplished the same thing (eg: the Sith Inquisitor story). Then, shortly after launch, subscriptions tanked and Bioware/EA fired or lost a large chunk of their writers and devs. Then the remaining devs decided that the personal stories was too much work and they basically abandoned them for a more general story with their expansion, “Rise of the Hutt Cartel”. I hope GW2’s Personal story doesn’t take the same path in the future.

Awesome post! Yes do not tell stories out of the game, that’s really bad… and involve PS with LS, and PLEASE don’t forget the Largos!

Valento.9852:

Awesome post! Yes do not tell stories out of the game, that’s really bad… and involve PS with LS, and PLEASE don’t forget the Largos!

I’ve been trying and trying to get that Largos mini, I guess I will just have to buy it. Anyway I see a lot of support for the Largos, I’m sure they will be used and playable at some point.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

I applaud the OP (and agree with most of what he said, especially the ‘Lieutenants are the lifeblood of an organisation’ section, which put into words what I’d been thinking myself). Applaud the devs who have taken notice too.

Thobek.1730:

I really don’t like how the characters have been developed. The obvious lesbian relationships being pushed in our faces again and again…

…Getting a bit sick of it. We need another style of writing to balance this feminist stuff.

Hrmm, I wonder why nobody ever says that kind of stuff when a game features a heavily pro-Male ratio, or “obvious hetero relationships”. You know… like the majority of other games.

As a woman with some pretty strong opinions on the representation of women in games myself… honestly, I have to agree with Thobek. Just because Angel McCoy is a woman writer who writes women does not make her good at writing women, and the characters she set up (who might well have changed hands a few times as the Living Story went on, if what was implied in the story of Hero-Tron’s development is true and there are different writers for each step even if the same characters are involved) became grating caricatures of themselves as the story went on.

It is no better to have a bunch of verbally abusive cardboard women sitting around taking jabs at an injured man than it is to have wallflower princesses being rescued by burly manly-man barbarians. It just reinforces the very same sexist principle either way: you are nice and pretty and helpless, or you are a powerful but entirely unlovable harpy; you cannot be both appealing and strong. And don’t even get me started on Scarlet: the ultimate woman on a pedestal, in many cases literally shouting down at the players from her place on high, separate and exalted— the only difference is that she’s exalted as a perfect villain and not as a perfect sex object.

Speaking of sex objects, Kasmeer and Marjory used to have at least some personality, but now they’re entirely eclipsed by their own sexualities. Compare them to Caithe, who is also largely defined by a lesbian relationship but whose character is enriched by that relationship as it provides conflict and a force that causes her character to grow and change.

It’s naive to think that simply writing about women is always going to be a good thing for women. The Taming of the Shrew is centered on a woman, and has plenty of female characters, but it’s hardly a huge victory for feminism! (Depending on your interpretation and staging of the final scene… but overall, definitely not something that advances women, hm?) In order for a story to have merit and not just be “feminist stuff,” it needs to be written so that it actually gets the point across, and doesn’t unintentionally communicate an entirely different and entirely counterproductive point— like “lesbians are lesbians first and people second, empowered women are mean, women belong on a pedestal”… and that’s JUST from the Battle for Lion’s Arch part of the story!

We need less “feminist stuff” and more women who are actually strong, both as characters and as people.

You really captures the flaws in this Living Story. +1 for you!
It had much potential, yet most of us were dissapointed. I love the game itself and its rich lore, but I have never felt that the Living Story was touching. It never played with my emotions if I can put it that way.

Anyway, season one is over and season 2 will come. It has a lot of potential and now Anet have much more experience with Living Story. So it looks bright

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Thobek.1730:

I really don’t like how the characters have been developed. The obvious lesbian relationships being pushed in our faces again and again…

…Getting a bit sick of it. We need another style of writing to balance this feminist stuff.

Hrmm, I wonder why nobody ever says that kind of stuff when a game features a heavily pro-Male ratio, or “obvious hetero relationships”. You know… like the majority of other games.

Its not just one thing in particular its the combination of a lot of things. I don’t care that its a lesbian relationship, its the way its poorly written. When it was Caithe and Faolain I thought wow this is not the usual stuff you see in a computer game, well done Anet for breaking down the norm. Then Kas and Marjory turned up and that’s when it started getting stupid. It’s not only that I don’t like those two characters, but it doesn’t help when they constantly flirt with each other while in serious situations.

As for your question you really need to sit back and think about this one for yourself. Ask yourself who normally plays fantasy MMO type games? who plays PC games in general? what is the percentage of gay/lesbian people (i.e. its about 3.7% in the U.S) Then ask yourself that question again and see if you can work it out for yourself. It’s not that hard, the statistics are out there.

BobbyStein.2315:

Part of the development process is prioritization, so I’d like to know what you feel are the highest impact items you think would improve our storytelling delivery. What are your top three requests?

My one request has less to do with the story itself but with the implementation in the game.

Merge the personal story with the living story.

1. Core story events should take place in an instance that remains permanently.
2. Keep the temporary zerg events in the open world.
3. New entries should be added to the “My Story” tab in the character menu.
4. Newly created characters can play through the instances in order.

Thobek.1730:

(snip snip)
As for your question you really need to sit back and think about this one for yourself. Ask yourself who normally plays fantasy MMO type games? who plays PC games in general? what is the percentage of gay/lesbian people (i.e. its about 3.7% in the U.S) Then ask yourself that question again and see if you can work it out for yourself. It’s not that hard, the statistics are out there.

Technically, the numbers of female and male gamers, at least, are a lot closer than most people would think. It’s just that female gamers tend to be fairly quiet about our gender, because the concept of “gamer grrls~” has become such a problem— and nobody can say whose fault it really is. (The girls who fit the stereotype? the guys who assume all girls are like that? the girls like me who keep complaining about them and thus unintentionally perpetuate the stereotype? These things are hard to untangle.)

There are also plenty of gay, lesbian, bi, transgender, all-sorts-of-gender-and-sexuality-types gamers out there who tend not to be loud about it. For everyone running around with an [LGBT] tag, there are plenty of gaymers who don’t feel like it’s really worth mentioning; and transgender or in-between-gender folks often just go with whatever people think they are, because you can play whatever gender you want when you’re sitting at a keyboard and not face-to-face (like my one male-but-rather-gender-wobbly friend who I could’ve sworn was female for the first few months that I knew him).

The whole point of that mini-wall-o’-text is that you really can’t know the gender and sexuality makeup of any given group of gamers, so it’s probably a good idea just not to make assumptions and to try to include all sorts— which is something the base of GW2, the non-Living-Story and non-update bits, do very well, and which Living Story does very poorly. You make good points, such as your point about Caithe and Faolain, and I’d hate to see the sense you’re making get drowned out by people getting irked at any assumptions you might make about the playerbase.

To bring this all back into context, then: ANet, when writing your characters, please consider both what you intend them to be like, and what you intend them to do; and then think about how they actually end up, and what they actually end up doing— and how they will be perceived by people who don’t have a direct window into your minds to see all the good intentions that pave your road to Orr.

Twyll Blackleaf.9641:

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

I applaud the OP (and agree with most of what he said, especially the ‘Lieutenants are the lifeblood of an organisation’ section, which put into words what I’d been thinking myself). Applaud the devs who have taken notice too.

Thobek.1730:

I really don’t like how the characters have been developed. The obvious lesbian relationships being pushed in our faces again and again…

…Getting a bit sick of it. We need another style of writing to balance this feminist stuff.

Hrmm, I wonder why nobody ever says that kind of stuff when a game features a heavily pro-Male ratio, or “obvious hetero relationships”. You know… like the majority of other games.

As a woman with some pretty strong opinions on the representation of women in games myself… honestly, I have to agree with Thobek. Just because Angel McCoy is a woman writer who writes women does not make her good at writing women, and the characters she set up (who might well have changed hands a few times as the Living Story went on, if what was implied in the story of Hero-Tron’s development is true and there are different writers for each step even if the same characters are involved) became grating caricatures of themselves as the story went on.

It is no better to have a bunch of verbally abusive cardboard women sitting around taking jabs at an injured man than it is to have wallflower princesses being rescued by burly manly-man barbarians. It just reinforces the very same sexist principle either way: you are nice and pretty and helpless, or you are a powerful but entirely unlovable harpy; you cannot be both appealing and strong. And don’t even get me started on Scarlet: the ultimate woman on a pedestal, in many cases literally shouting down at the players from her place on high, separate and exalted— the only difference is that she’s exalted as a perfect villain and not as a perfect sex object.

Speaking of sex objects, Kasmeer and Marjory used to have at least some personality, but now they’re entirely eclipsed by their own sexualities. Compare them to Caithe, who is also largely defined by a lesbian relationship but whose character is enriched by that relationship as it provides conflict and a force that causes her character to grow and change.

It’s naive to think that simply writing about women is always going to be a good thing for women. The Taming of the Shrew is centered on a woman, and has plenty of female characters, but it’s hardly a huge victory for feminism! (Depending on your interpretation and staging of the final scene… but overall, definitely not something that advances women, hm?) In order for a story to have merit and not just be “feminist stuff,” it needs to be written so that it actually gets the point across, and doesn’t unintentionally communicate an entirely different and entirely counterproductive point— like “lesbians are lesbians first and people second, empowered women are mean, women belong on a pedestal”… and that’s JUST from the Battle for Lion’s Arch part of the story!

We need less “feminist stuff” and more women who are actually strong, both as characters and as people.

Caithe and her former partner are very well defined characters, I like them both very much as well as their story.

I agree with what you said about Marjory and Kasmeer. They could be great characters someday but not yet, they’re still rather flat.

Kasei.8726:

BobbyStein.2315:

Part of the development process is prioritization, so I’d like to know what you feel are the highest impact items you think would improve our storytelling delivery. What are your top three requests?

My one request has less to do with the story itself but with the implementation in the game.

Merge the personal story with the living story.

1. Core story events should take place in an instance that remains permanently.
2. Keep the temporary zerg events in the open world.
3. New entries should be added to the “My Story” tab in the character menu.
4. Newly created characters can play through the instances in order.

They are working on the ability to replay old/missed events, I assume it would be done in an instance and it should scale. If I go in alone I can beat it alone, if I go in with a group of 3 it will still be a reasonable challenge.

My 1, my number 1, my number one please please please please use this is, “Please use what we already have to develop the story”!!! There’s SO much I am so curious about and at this rate, it doesn’t look like we’re ever going to get any update on it. What about the Wizard’s Tower? The largos? Why did Lord Faren step down in the ministry? What’s chasing the quaggans out of town? There’s one nice centaur, could we see more? Do more exist? And what about the tengu, the kodan, or Malyck's tree (honestly, every time I think about Malyck's tree I get irrationally upset and want to cry. What the heck! There's another pale tree!!!!!!!!!! And it's never ever ever touched upon! I PRAY that season 2 of the living story will at least hint at it because my LIFEBLOOD depends on this tree!) At this rate I’m just going to have to rely on my own fanfiction and speculation.

My 2…would be to please please please please please expand on the personal story of the character. I want to have an arc for myself. One where I can do something with my character and have it have meaning. Maybe as a human, I could join the seraph. For an example of how it could affect my character, I could earn a new title from that—“Seraph”, perhaps. Going up in the ranks earns physical rewards like special armor skins.
But for something like this, going up in the ranks would be something you do outside of the personal story. Instead of it being level-based to go to the next instance, you’d have to work on doing seraph-things until you got to the desired rank (i.e. instead of saying that it is a level 40 instance it would say you need to be a soldier). There’s a LOT of ways you could tackle lore and story, and touch upon towns and the personalities inside of them that would need seraph help, with something like this. And I was only using the seraph route as an example! You could come up with almost anything, and with an arc like this it can be used to refer to your character in the living story, too. This suggestion isn’t really for the living story though, but I still care about it so much that I absolutely had to put it here. Please. I will send Arenanet cookies and drawings of Logan Thackeray all the way from Canada!

And 3…as other people have stated in this forum, guild wars 2 IS a dark fantasy. As I was doing an escort mission the other day, I realized that for the quaggan, no place is safe. Even for the humans they were with, no place is safe. There is no true sense of safety because someone or something can attack at any time. No matter where they go, their safety is only temporary. I mean, Lion’s Arch was left in ruins, Divinity’s Reach had been attacked by Scarlet (and is constantly under threat anyway, according to the personal story). That’s really, really dark. But it’s not touched upon in the way it should be, I think. Going more over this theme, going over the core would really bring out all of the light moments that we do have in the game. All of the little jokes and funny characters would shine a lot more and have more meaning and would contribute to the bigger theme of triumph in dark times. For right now, they usually seem out of place, or like they’re just there to have a party while the world erupts into turmoil behind them. (Which, honestly, wouldn’t be a bad thing if it were executed differently.)

Gosh, apologies for the enthusiasm, I just have a LOT of passion for this kind of thing, being a teenage girl on the internet and all. I love storytelling and I know guild wars 2 can have INCREDIBLE storytelling! I just don’t understand why we don’t have it yet and I hope that all that turns around this year! I’m rooting for you guys!

Also, Faren’s incompetence is really kind of adorable rather than demeaning. First of all, it’s in-character. He’s a noble, after all, so while he’s probably quite accustomed to duels and such, running into the middle of messy battle by himself (without the player character to save his skin) is gonna end poorly, a feeling most of us can relate to— not many players would be able to make such a daring rescue in real life. But he still had the courage to try, which you can’t help but admire. So, he ends up both relatable and admirable. And he’s just the sort of guy who would wear a Speedo to the beach in Southsun Cove: he’s comfortable in his skin, proud of his sex appeal, and not afraid to show off a bit. While I’m not equipped, per se, to judge the briefs vs. boxers thing, there are enough skimpy female clothes in this game that putting probably the most appearance-conscious man in the game into skimpy clothes too is fair play in my eyes. :P (It seems to be a Human thing, I think, judging by their cultural armor… Perhaps Tyrian Humans are just exhibitionists?)

I think the Kiel vs. Evon thing isn’t so bad, either. Kiel may be domineering, but she is kinda a… soldier-policewoman?… from a town full of pirates. And Evon’s not exactly the nicest guy in the world. The conflict between the two of them works because they’re basically by-the-book versus exploit-the-fine-print, and each of those worldviews is demonstrated to have its flaws. Sometimes one of them will briefly step into the other’s territory, usually leading to something awesome. Kiel breaking out of her by-the-book mold at the end of the last Southsun event, when she destroyed the Consortium’s technically legal but morally questionable contracts, was a pretty great moment; and Evon’s assistance to Hero-Tron was not entirely self-serving, even if he did want to benefit from it by being noticed and rewarded for helping.

But there really is no reason for the Destiny’s Edge 2.0 gals to be so awful to Braham, or for Braham’s deterioration into an emotional mess. It’s interesting, actually, that in order to exalt women, McCoy apparently feels that she has to place men in the roles women once held— overly emotional, submissive, and in need of protection— rather than just doing away with the role entirely. Perhaps it’s just easier to write according to tropes, and if you disagree with the most commonly used tropes, it’s easier to reverse them than it is to come up with something new?

Perhaps what saves Faren, Kiel and Evon, in the end, is that they might be more “minor” characters according to the writers’ plans, so they aren’t forced into some sort of role as a mouthpiece or an exemplar of McCoy’s wish-fulfillment; whereas Marjory and Kasmeer and Rox and Braham are supposed to be major characters, so they get all this baggage foisted on them until you can’t see the personality under all the meta-intentions. Kiel doesn’t have to be a tool for breaking a role; she can just be a character, and so she ends up as a fairly dominance-seeking woman who’s still more complex than just “stomps men;” and Faren doesn’t have to symbolize anything but his own kitten ily charming self. Marjory and Kasmeer, on the other hand, are saddled with this quest to increase representation of women and homosexual people in games, and so the quest comes to define them; they end up as tools for making points with, rather than characters for telling stories with.

Top three requests, in as compact a phrasing as I can use. Forgive me if it comes off as terse.

1. Tell the story in the game rather than outside of it, be it short stories, social media images, or chatting it on the forums. It’s nice if you tease things, but important key points need to be available in the game first and elsewhere only if you really must.

2. Let the player character have some impact on things themselves. Do better than Cutthroat Politics, and give us a chance to actually make a difference in the story rather than “just as planned”. (Kira is overrated.)

3. Fix the pacing. This is the third point because I think you got it after the Tower of Nightmares debuted. But please give us more to work with as far as the pacing goes. Frost and Flame took some time but it left us interested . . . and then it yanked sideways to Southsun. Okay, but it was still paced interesting and connected through the refugees . . . and yanked sideways again to Dragon Bash . . . don’t do this again.

By the way, I compared this LS season to Lost many times in recent posts, because that show suffered from similar problems through the full arc of the show. A dragging middle and a seemingly-rushed third act, too many idiot balls juggled, characters either brilliant or “kill them now please” with few between . . . and deaths which lacked meaning.

Twyll Blackleaf.9641:

Also, Faren’s incompetence is really kind of adorable rather than demeaning. First of all, it’s in-character.

Notably, it’s in line with the Lord Faren from the personal story too. Gutsy but ineffectual, means well but lacks ability. Hits on female humans but has almost no charisma to pull it off.

This isn’t something the LS developed, or made up. This is an extension of the character. Though worth noting he did at least grow some to try to lunge for Queen Jennah when he thought he could save her . . . so there is progress.

It’s tough for me. There are not many characters in the LS which identify to me as male/female first and their duties/goals second . . . Marjory is not one who identifies as female first to me, Kasmeer is. Kiel isn’t, nor Evon or Rox. Braham is a toss-up, but Magnus is definitely male. This is kind of key to me, because it does let me feel they are better than flat characters.

In Faren’s case, not much better, but him and that stupid golem are clearly comedy relief of a sort. I’d like to see them both develop out of that and get their own footing. (Again with the Lost – darnit, give us comedic relief like Hurley who actually grew a character over three seasons and was more than a fat dude.)

Thobek.1730:

Its not just one thing in particular its the combination of a lot of things. I don’t care that its a lesbian relationship, its the way its poorly written. When it was Caithe and Faolain I thought wow this is not the usual stuff you see in a computer game, well done Anet for breaking down the norm. Then Kas and Marjory turned up and that’s when it started getting stupid. It’s not only that I don’t like those two characters, but it doesn’t help when they constantly flirt with each other while in serious situations.

That’s a fine point, but wasn’t the one I was addressing. I was addressing how fictional straight couples are shown doing the same stuff all the time, flirting in serious situations, getting stupid, being unrealistic. And yet, whenever it’s a straight romance in question, their sexuality is never brought up. Usually nobody bats an eyelid at the incongruity of it.

Straight romances get away with absolutely anything in fiction, be it unrealistic, incongruous, or downright jarring. They can be shoe-horned into anything, including advertising. But no eyelids are batted. The same crime is committed by a homosexual relationship, and the commentators come out in force to condemn how it’s pushy and unreasonable.

I simply think there’s a double-standard.

Thobek.1730:

As for your question you really need to sit back and think about this one for yourself. Ask yourself who normally plays fantasy MMO type games? who plays PC games in general? what is the percentage of gay/lesbian people (i.e. its about 3.7% in the U.S) Then ask yourself that question again and see if you can work it out for yourself. It’s not that hard, the statistics are out there.

I know the statistics. That point is always brought up, so I’m well acquainted with it.

The vast, vast, vast majority of media with romance in it, in every medium, is dominated almost entirely by heterosexual relationships. The gay relationships are bloody rare by comparison. And yet, when they do crop up, the response is always a shade of that; “obvious gay stuff being shoved down our throats again!!”

It’s not about the ratio. It’s about the double-standard people have.