I was analyzing a bit for fun and thought that I would write down everything regarding the flaws in GW 2 that revolve around narrative (how you tell the story) and the story (what is actually happening), but I noticed it would take far too much of my time to do so (even this post took me far greater time then I intended). I also suspect no one wants to read through several pages of text, so I just want to throw my voice into the others and say that there are significant problems and I hope you can find the solution for them in the midst of all this feedback.
I’ll leave with some quick tips (SPOILERS AHEAD).
Focus on improving dialog by:
Making sure you know the characters and make sure they have real depth to them. I’ve always found making character diamonds help if you want to be sure you know that you have a real character. If you feel you don’t need to make a character diamond to someone as his/her role is so small, then you probably don’t need that character at all.
Keep the characters:
You introduce (sometimes very poorly) and kill off characters too quickly for anyone to get a real connection to them, hence they feel insignificant and a waste of time. Keep them around, have fewer characters and make sure you they get more then one minute screen time before you bid them farewell.
Don’t be afraid of bringing someone back later as well, either alive or dead.
I still remember the shock of meeting Rurik…
Zhatain, go kill it:
If you introduce the goal for my journey in the very beginning, then there is no tension.
Why?
Because I know I will achieve it and survive it as this is a mmo game, so you can’t kill my character. If you introduce the goal in the beginning, you also need a factor of uncertainty which usually revolves around survivability.
Lord of The Rings is a great example as you don’t know if Frodo will survive or what toll it will take on him. Nightfall is a good example (as it’s GW) where you didn’t know you’d be up against Abaddon yet you knew it somehow revolved around him, so it was a very interesting journey to have compared to GW2.
It is of course possible in a game to have tension and introduce the goal in the beginning, if something/someone is at stake that makes it interesting.
I feel GW 2 does not have this.
Story Structure:
The structure for the story is rather weird as it’s very sporadic and very little actually goes together. I’d say streamline it and focus on fewer events (say three acts, always a good fallback to use) which stretches on for longer and contains more interesting missions.
Story Missions:
Right now most story missions end too quickly and contain very little interesting events. Why not take a look at how you did it in Guild Wars? Some of those were actually very interesting and the length usually provided ample opportunity to introduce characters and different events that you needed to know about. It’s at least better than:
1) Jump into a lake 2) Swim to the point
3) Grab the Object 4) Return where you started.
That is an actual story quest for those who’re wondering.
I also don’t mean to just add more combat to a mission as that would not help the issue.
And finally, as this has gone on far too long as it is:
Focus on making choices actually matter. There is little to no effect from the choices I do, so there is little incentive for me to care. This also makes the whole “personal” story not very personal.
Please also do a check on the “Set to Blow” story mission. Here your character is talking to Tybalt about things you have no idea about. When was this mentioned? Why did my character know this? This actually left me very confused and I even had to check the wiki to see if I had missed anything, which I hadn’t. In other words, make sure you have presented the information before you make my character act like he knows it.
Now I’ve certainly written far too much so I hope this was an intresting read for someone.
edit:
Malin.2490 is completly right as well. Good post.
(edited by Dion Vex.4960)