Guild Wars 2

Carighan.6758:

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

and that’s the main character, the hero, you. It is impossible to create a narritive in which there is no main character, but 2000 people are given equal footing, it would be pure chaos and not resemble a story in the slightest.

Yes, but what I question is why there is need to create the illusions that I am this hero?
Because that in turn adds the difficulty of making everyone think they’re the hero, and that sounds mighty stupid as soon as you group up.

While I didn’t like Trahearne much for reasons of his VO and cheesy dialogue, I saw nothing wrong with letting a NPC be the hero. It’s a pretty nifty idea. Removes the need to have all this hero-illusion bloat just to pretend you’re a single-player RPG.

Simple: We’re a group~battalion of adventurers. For purposes of needing a singular character for say, a killing blow, have a known and established NPC do that.
It’s pretty easy. The issue with Trahearne really wasn’t the idea, just the execution. Tree-horn was a terrible character. The dialogue was really bad, the voice acting was spotty at best and to non-sylvari he was never introduced. But the concept still worked, so I’m stumped why they’d abandon it.

Well, except ofc the endless whine on the forums how they could dare to not make each PC their own little-mind-world hero

No, from the begining, we were always the main character…. I mean, you don’t seriously think the members of destiny’s Edge have 2000 close and personal friends, or that there is 2000 commanders of the pact, which is second in command or the entire organizations army (which would be like having 2000 five star generals, when in US history we dont even have 100, not to mention 2000 at one time), that there’s six hundred heroes of shamore, each and every one of which having struck the decisive blow to save the town?

no, I can believe there are 5~25 commanders of the pact, that there are 3~6 heroes who worked together to save shamore, and another 3~6 for each of the other nations, who saved that respective nation, I can believe that destinys edge has 5~25 close and personal friends… and I chose to believe, those other heroes/adventurers who acomplish these feats with me, at my side, are my personal friends and guild mates, and that everyone else I pass is just an everyday soldier, soldiers under my command even… otherwise, the story makes no sense.

You don’t want to be the main character… but unfortunatly you have been from the start, that’s simply what gw2 chose.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

No, from the begining, we were always the main character…. I mean, you don’t seriously think the members of destiny’s Edge have 2000 close and personal friends, or that there is 2000 commanders of the pact, which is second in command or the entire organizations army (which would be like having 2000 five star generals, when in US history we dont even have 100, not to mention 2000 at one time), that there’s six hundred heroes of shamore, each and every one of which having struck the decisive blow to save the town?

no, I can believe there are 5~25 commanders of the pact, that there are 3~6 heroes who worked together to save shamore, and another 3~6 for each of the other nations, who saved that respective nation, I can believe that destinys edge has 5~25 close and personal friends… and I chose to believe, those other heroes/adventurers who acomplish these feats with me, at my side, are my personal friends and guild mates, and that everyone else I pass is just an everyday soldier, soldiers under my command even… otherwise, the story makes no sense.

You don’t want to be the main character… but unfortunatly you have been from the start, that’s simply what gw2 chose.

Not just what GW2 chose, it’s what playing a role in a game is all about. It’s an RPG. You, the player, can’t be a faceless nobody. You necessarily must be a somebody in the story because it’s an RPG, and an RPG must give the player a role to play. Now that role doesn’t have to be the biggest, bestest, greatest character in the universe, I’m not the Queen of Kryta or a human god or a leader of a Charr legion, but it does have to be something the player feels is worth playing as.

Arewn.2368:

Not just what GW2 chose, it’s what playing a role in a game is all about. It’s an RPG. You, the player, can’t be a faceless nobody. You necessarily must be a somebody in the story because it’s an RPG, and an RPG must give the player a role to play. Now that role doesn’t have to be the biggest, bestest, greatest character in the universe, I’m not the Queen of Kryta or a human god or a leader of a Charr legion, but it does have to be something the player feels is worth playing as.

Eh, they could create a game in which you play an exceedingly comon personal with no special abilities or skills and no important ties, the role of a grunt souldier who accomplishes maindane meager feats and moderate accomplishment that are far from note worthery… but that wouldn’t really be interesting, and is a direct contradiction as to why we play games in the first place.

Eir* im sure you can handle that Sons of Svanir Camp alone.. it will really make your case stronger..

after open world content

Eir* I knew you could hand this all alone

Me thinking* how the hell did she not notice the other 150 people here 5 minutes ago farming the champions :S

Teratus.2859:

Eir* im sure you can handle that Sons of Svanir Camp alone.. it will really make your case stronger..

after open world content

Eir* I knew you could hand this all alone

Me thinking* how the hell did she not notice the other 150 people here 5 minutes ago farming the champions :S

I have no problem with open world events being included in the story, but I agree, given the plot text that you are ‘to do this alone’ that should have been instanced. Its a simple matter of when and wear certain content is appropriate.

I’d like for Open world content to be like the Dry top stuff

that worked really well
as far as story related developments go.. I would much prefer it instanced
we are supposed to be the Hero after all..
as far as personal lore goes we are the only player character in the game..
it does break that illusion having open world content like that and it’s even worse when people simply use the new content to farm loot bags >.<

Teratus.2859:

I’d like for Open world content to be like the Dry top stuff

that worked really well
as far as story related developments go.. I would much prefer it instanced
we are supposed to be the Hero after all..
as far as personal lore goes we are the only player character in the game..
it does break that illusion having open world content like that and it’s even worse when people simply use the new content to farm loot bags >.<

Not necessarily, the event in question was programmed so that we were working along side members of the vigil; in which case, all of the other player characters present can be presented as grunt soldiers within the vigil ranks, and thus do not inherently break immersion. The only issue here is the fact that we were supposed to do it all alone, and I don’t know about you, but being backed by a large vigil army, sounds like cheating to me.

So open world events can fit into the story, its just a matter of when its appropriate to do so.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Eh, they could create a game in which you play an exceedingly comon personal with no special abilities or skills and no important ties, the role of a grunt souldier who accomplishes maindane meager feats and moderate accomplishment that are far from note worthery… but that wouldn’t really be interesting, and is a direct contradiction as to why we play games in the first place.

That’s my point thought
Who plays an RPG to be a faceless nobody who’s completely unexceptional?

World of Warcraft kind of does what Carighan was saying: the NPCs (generally the faction leaders) are the “main characters” that most of the story revolves around, while the player is an elite troop of sorts. But even there, you’re still an outstanding individual with an adventure of your own.
Having the story built so that the player is just “one of the masses” and is referred to as such is going too far though. And for what, some shallow sense of “it’s a multiplayer story now!”?

I agree with some of your points, but I think it’s really just about execution and knowing which part of the story to put where.

For example, I think Iron Marches part benefited from not being instanced compared to Concordia instance of the last episode. It’s a far better way of showing players that the threat is spreading. It just feels much more real, and flows better with the game structure as well.

You are right about the Frostgorge Sound part, while it was fun having a meta event as a part of the release, story-wise it felt forced. The section was supposed to be about Eir, Braham, and me, and it didn’t fit.

Carighan.6758:

It just totally breaks immersion for me. I know there’s lots of other players around. I mean come on, it’s why I’m playing a MMORPG instead of a single-player RPG in the first place.

Nothing ANet can do about your out of game meta-cognition of the fact that you’re playing an MMO I’m afraid :P
Also players were complaining about not feeling like a hero, and now players are complaining that they feel like a hero. Catch-22 I guess.

daros.3407:

Agree. Story needs to remain in instances. I don’t want anyone around my story it takes away immersion. This chapter is just one big zerg run. Nothing more, nothing interesting.

I think it can be done better, but I’m not sure completely removing it is the better options. I’d rather say they attempt to change how you interact with NPC in the open world, or how you react to other players. What I’m saying is, lets try some innovation before returning to the same-old-same-old.

Asmodeus.5782:

If an MMO’s mechanics are able to comfortably accomodate dozens of players in one event, it’s fine. But if a zerg removes any need for tactics and and thinking, replacing it with mashing autoattack, then the MMO should stick to the mix of moderately large groups and instances.

If I have to type “Attack the small tentacles first” I’m going to… well probably not do anything. But I’d be extremely annoyed! And that’s just for a single small event.
Zerg tactics… currently it’s feeling like a oxymoron. Did a tripple worm pug earlier (I was leveling an alt in the area). No one knew the tactics, just aimlessly running around. In fact iuf my time in other MMOs (primarily WoW) has taught me anything is that MMOs aren’t synonymous with tactical fun.
Most MMO encounters are about rote-learning. Events that require dynamic reaction would be a horrible failure. The zerg content is difficult to balance as a simple auto-attack spam isn’t very engaging but something that requires more complicated tasks tends to fail when a noticeable portion of the zerg isn’t following tactics. These encounters tend to thus go 1 of 2 ways: very easy (no need for strategic complexity thus majority of the zerg can be clueless) or very difficult (where strategic complexity is requires and having clueless zergers leads to failure).

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

Have you actually fought any of the Mordem Champions in the Iron Marches? You stand there, stupidly ‘mashing autoattack’ as you say, and the vines that come out of the ground will down you, then a short time later, kill you with zero chance of rallying.

Well at least the one event requires you to kill the vines when they popup, others require you to constantly be moving (oh man I hate those vines that follow you, sometimes dodging works other times they just keep coming). So these are overall on the easy side of zerg content spectrum but have an added element of individual strategy.

Katai.6240:

I don’t understand why everyone wants everything to be instanced. It sort of takes away the point of being an MMO, doesn’kitten

Instanced content allows you to control who you bring along, this means that if you have zerg content that falls on the hard side you can ensure that everyone knows the tactics at least, otherwise other players who don’t know the tactics join, scale up the difficulty but don’t bring any benefit.
Although I don’t agree with instancing the content as a solution, I think content should be better designed (as we’re slowly seeing ANet do).

Manasa Devi.7958:

And then Eir compliments you for doing all of it alone. Laugh out Loud! Immersion needed a mercy killing at that point.

That’s actually called ludonarrative dissonance. But yay it can be immersion breaking.

Ravion Hawk.4736:

Now you are on Chapter 3 and you have to do Open World Group Event stuff to progress any further.

NOBODY is playing LS: S2: C3 and trolls just pop up and scale up the events.

That’s a scaling issue, content that is required for progression should be solo-able but also scale to zerg levels (in fact almost all content except dedicated group content should do this. In an ideal world). At present I think this is the case actually.

@CareForLiving:
One idea I wish they’d implement was that NPCs in the open world (in general, not just story-related) recognized groups of players. Instead of talking to each of us separately, they’d address us as a group.
That alone would add so much immersion.

The problem Anet faces with the Living Story is that they are trying to cater to two completely different groups of player. They are trying to build on the single player/small group RPG element, to appeal to the RPG players. And they are building on the open world dynamic events element, to appeal to the MMO players.

Both groups, for the most part, have opposite opinions to the other. RPG players think the game is predominantely RPG in nature, with the MMO part merely showing that a lot of players connect to the game. While the MMO players think the game is predominantely a multiplayer game, with RPG elements.

Neither groups is 100% correct. Whatever your views of what an MMORPG should be is irrelevant, it is the developers that decide what that means. Anet are trying to build a large scale MMO game AND an interesting story driven RPG. In equal measure. And that is why it is a problem for Anet. It is a very difficult thing to find that balance.

Personaly (key word there), I think the RPG story side of things should be kept to the personal story, which they could continue to expand on. While the Living Story should be changed to Living World, where the world, through dynamic events and world bosses, is constantly shifting and changing. Mixing the two, I feel, is not the way to go. They should focus on two seperate entities: Personal Story and Living World.

But then you have the potential problem of the Story not matching the Living World, and this is currently a problem that already exists in the game. I killed Zaitan, yet to other players he still lives, and if I killed Zaitan why has Orr not been cleaned up and restoration started? So changing the world in this regard could break the personal story, and visa versa.

I don’t yet have the solution to this problem, but it is good to see Anet trying different things. At least they are trying to find that balance and not staying static. So I can forgive them the odd mistake here and there.

MMO- litterally, massive multi-player online; this says nothing about the story, doesn’t claim that the player is not the main character in the slightlest, all it means, is that its a game you play online with thousands of others. You may feel, that because you are playing with thousands of others, that that makes you unimportant or in somewhat devalueates your part, but that is simply your interpretation, and not what the genre means in the slightest.

RPG- literally, role playing game; this means you take an active role in the story, you are -if prehaps not the main character- still part of the main cast. Your actions effect the story and the world around you, if you drop a stone in a well, it causes ripples. And no matter how you look at it, a main cast cannot span over thousands of different characters.

Combained the two, and that is the game we are playing, an MMORPG in which your character plays a vital role as one of the lead protagonist.

Now that the bugs have been worked out and we can see how this was meant to run, I am liking the idea of open world incorporation more and more.

It cannot be the only element (we still need instances, dungeons and even things like minigames), but the heart of this game should always be open world. It is where it truly shines.

(that said, Im really itching for a new dungeon sooner rather than later. We got Molten Facility on episode 4 of S1, after all ).

The only problem I see is the assignment of season 2 to the presence by the open world events. In a view months the instances take place in past but the open world events in Episode 3 will take place in the presence. This will cause some weird paradoxes. The mentioned events have to stay independent from the fact that Mordremoth get defeated or another Elder Dragon will take over and destroy the maps. The NPCs and Events of Season 2 Episode 3 have to stay frozen in time in the maps doing/talking the same things for the rest of GW2’s lifetime.

Well, I just got stuck in my LS completion last night due to the Breaking the Ice meta-event in Frostgorge Sound getting bugged. There weren’t enough people on to spawn a second map copy either. I really hope this gets fixed soon. I don’t want to have to wait till the weekend to finish Dragon’s Reach.

Rin.1046:

The problem Anet faces with the Living Story is that they are trying to cater to two completely different groups of player. They are trying to build on the single player/small group RPG element, to appeal to the RPG players. And they are building on the open world dynamic events element, to appeal to the MMO players.

Hrm, fair point.

Though I don’t think it’s necessary to strictly split between the two, their development process is too mixed. If some patches were based around purely solo content, another about 5man stuff all in a specially designed dungeon, another all open world and maybe even some in WvW, that’d work better. Each patch would have a “focus”.