Guild Wars 2

Dear Arena.Net, as a consumer, I want to improve this game, and here’s what I think is wrong and/or should be improved in future.

1. Do not disregard player character’s personality. It was already almost destroyed in personal story, with all lines feel like they are made exclusively for human characters and just applied to other races after you beat your 1-30 experience, and I can understand that, although with silent protagonist, which we have now, you can add the required variety in dialogue.

An example.
My asura character replies to Kasmeer in ep.4 something like “… that lie-detecting thing you do… wow.” I can imagine human or maybe sylvari saying such a thing, but not a brain on steroids that got the Snaff Savant prize. He just sounded like a half-witted skritt. I wonder who made that line.

2. Race of the character must be reflected in the dialogues. May sound related to my first point, yet it has it’s own spot here. Ep.4, during the summit my asura character talks to councillor Phlunt, and says “Are you? Like you were safe underground?”. Why is it “you”? Shouldn’t it be “We”?

Again, is that so hard to code? Somehow you do put some time and effort into engineer-exclusive lines/options, but disregard race choice completely.

3. Do not overdo so demanded “I want to be the center of the story!”
The fisrt part of the summit with you, the player, talking to the leaders was tedious and uninspired. Without voiceover it felt plain awkward, rushed and inessential. Why should we talk other this subject if it’s already a common knowledge – that Elder Dragons will consume everything if not stopped? The whole scene, as others mentioned, was structured like:

-Oh, we are <race x>, we have problem <y> and problem <z>, we can’t spare any more reinforcements to fight elder dragon!"
-But Elder Dragons are bad and will come for you!
-Oh, yeah, you are right, okay.
Repeat.

Was that really that important to the plot or were you just playing to playerbase’s demand to be more relevant to the story? I would be much more happy to hear Trahearne talking to the leaders and discussing the strategy, as he is the actual leader of the Pact, and inviting me during his speech to adress some topics, as we are more experienced with Mordrem, for example.

4. Innacuracy in everything. I understand that it’s very hard to make everything one hundred percent accurate to the lore, but. What is Pale Tree’s avatar? An etheral manifestation or a shining wooden body? Why the Shadow of the Dragon is trying to hit Omphalos chamber? Was it after the Avatar? After the player? Or the world leaders?

And how does Trahearne know that this was a Shadow of the Dragon and why he calls it that way? He couldn’t know it’s name, nor does player character. It’s just a more or less inspired name to identify it out of game context. A game mechanic. Can you imagine any of leading characters mentioning something like “champion destroyer troll” in context of the story? No. Same goes for Shadow of the Dragon. Kinda.

To be continued, I think.
No TL/DR, sorry. You are free to call it an opinion. You are not forced to agree with me.

Aethelbert.1497:

And how does Trahearne know that this was a Shadow of the Dragon and why he calls it that way? He couldn’t know it’s name, nor does player character. It’s just a more or less inspired name to identify it out of game context. A game mechanic.

You fight Shadow of the Dragon in the starting instance of the sylvari PS. It’s called Shadow of the Dragon there. Provided everyone knows mostly everything among sylvari because they’re connected to the Pale Tree (except for the Soundless), no wonder we know the name.

Apart from that, agreed on most things.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Aethelbert.1497:

And how does Trahearne know that this was a Shadow of the Dragon and why he calls it that way? He couldn’t know it’s name, nor does player character. It’s just a more or less inspired name to identify it out of game context. A game mechanic.

You fight Shadow of the Dragon in the starting instance of the sylvari PS. It’s called Shadow of the Dragon there. Provided everyone knows mostly everything among sylvari because they’re connected to the Pale Tree (except for the Soundless), no wonder we know the name.

Apart from that, agreed on most things.

Sigh. I do know what this dragon is. Every player is aware of this, I’d assume. Are you taking me for a kitten or something?

Who gave it that name? A developer, not player or some other characters. Ergo, it’s a mechanic.

And, most importantly. Must I remind you that Dream of Dreams is not a hivemind?

Now that I remember, another point that needs to improve in terms of writing.

During the last Bazaar of Four Winds there was a dialogue between Kasmeer and Marjory, in which Kasmeer says one particular thing that made me feel a bit strange about it.

The phrase was, IIRC, “… like good cop/bad cop”.

Does that word even exist in Tyria? It real life, it, as some say, has roots in American history, back in times when policemen were wearing a copper eight-pointed starts in New York city. But in Tyria there is no such thing or anything related to it. How did that line find it way in the game? I’d assume because someone’s too lazy to invent an original line instead of cliche, but that’s jsut my humble opinion.

So, the point number 6. Vocabulary that characters use in context should not consist of words that are non-existant or haven’t originated in this world. Can you imagine characters of Lord of the Rings having word “Iphone” in their lexicon? I can’t.

That started with Scarlet using “DR” [dee-ar] to refer to Divinity’s Reach.

Cringe-worthy.

Rhaegar.1203:

That started with Scarlet using “DR” [dee-ar] to refer to Divinity’s Reach.

Cringe-worthy.

My sides. I didn’t remember such a thing. Although come to think of it, I do remember someone reffering to Lion’s Arch as LA, yet I am not sure if it was a member of biconics.

Yes, I think it was Brahms in S2E1. I remember I noticed but I didn’t react as strongly as I did when Scarlet used it. I guess that’s their strategy, to keep doing things like this until we just accept them.