Guild Wars 2

Kain Francois.4328:

Gay marriage is legal in Tyria, unlike Republican-controlled America.

I’m OK with most of gays and I love some of them. And marriage has nothing to do with love.

mcgriddles.2416:

i don’t like the charr. can we get rid of them because i don’t like them?

rytlock can stay. he’s cool.

I’m backing this, but only if Rytlock dies, too.

Mudran.8105:

And when the fight started, they just tried to revive you which is useless.

Well, and even this not very often.

Vanthian.9267:

The story would be much better without any of the new “characters” they introduced. I honestly haven’t finished the story yet because it is so bad. The when, where, and how the lines are “delivered” are horrible and most of them are not needed. I cringe when the amazingly gay duo is on the screen. Keep on reaffirming that relationship. Shove it down our throats, because it is not obvious enough yet. Even Logan and Queen Jennah’s relationship isn’t written this badly (and that one is pretty bad on its own).

At the very least, make a freakin skip button. Maybe then I could finish this so called story. The further along this story goes on the further they burn down the wonderful lore of Guild Wars 1. It has become a complete mockery of itself.

Agreed on everything save the Logan – Jennah (and the GW1 since I did not play it). The only difference here is that these two are fortunately not around you most of the time. I was allergic to Destiny Edge and namely Logan and/or Jennah every time they were on screen during character story. Thinking about it, I really do not recall anything romance based in this game which would feel at least somehow… good. It feels as if they hired a 13 year old virgin and asked him to design the romance subplots, then they changed gender of one protagonist where they needed a gay romance.

Olvendred.3027:

“Overcomplicates” things with homophobia (and “abuse” – you forgot your whole digression about abuse)… backtracks by insulting high school dungeon masters (who are, of course, typically overweight and never involved in real life romances).

At least if Anet ever needs to write a character who constantly puts their foot in it, they know who to ask.

Well I’m not going argue. Just, if you are really interested in understanding my point (which is not the cause, but nevertheless), just iunstal The Secret World – IIRC it is now ftp or something – roll any character and play, say, at least to the end of Kingsmouth, going through every dialogue you can.

Coulter, crawlerxp – as I see it now, my biggest fault in this whole thread was that I overcomplicated things, in most cases because of anticipation of the “burn the homophobe” attack.

But it is just so very simple. The typical quality of writting in the whole living story is at high school level. Just pick up your typical overweight high school dungeon master, who is dreaming about her first real life romance, ask her to write a story with a romantic plot, and she will end with something like that.

The only problem we have is that we got used to this level of “quality” and we seriously discuss it as if it deserved any detailed discussion.

My breaking point was few days ago when I had to suffer through the Party politics to make it to Calibrating waypoints since I needed the ley line dust.

To make the story short, I’m spending the time till Witcher 3 with a Lumie personal story in TSW which is top tier writing, and if it is not enough I might try ME2 or 3. I’m done with this game since I just can not suffer any more of this stuff. You can run into a good dialogue in GW2 but very seldom. The gameplay beats most of the other games in industry but this is totally spoiled by the writers.
Have fun guys. I will.

Let me quote myself: “and these characters would follow the player on some story based adventures (like living world) ".
So I speak about solo content. ATM you get some NPC support / company for story or living world solo instances, but they are not helpfull and you did not chose to cooperate with them.

Let us find our own group of followers / friends, who would reside in some home base location. This group would be picked up by player character, who shall first gain their trust by completing a quest line associated with the NPC, and these characters would follow the player on some story based adventures (like living world) and support the player in an effective manner. They also should have their own dialogues and personal stories and could romance among themselves or with the player character. The overall set should be broad enough for every player to pick up companions s/he likes most.

The mechanism should be something like that part of personal story, where player picks up a tribe which would latter support her/him (ie. skritt, ogres, grawls…) in the fight against Zaithan.

The companions acts like team members under players command, where player is a pivot of any story and makes the important decisions.

The whole group of companions (plus any NPC characters like refugees etc. player invites to live here) shall reside in a home base. The home base shall be easily accessible (a free waypoint perhaps?) and should replace player’s home which is very seldom used. I can imagine something like an airship, ship, or house / fortress in LA, anything which would make a good residence for the commander of the Pact.

The home base might also provide some services, like crafting or shopping, maybe even growing some ingredients etc., and can have several quest tied to it and it’s furnishing and equipping. In fact it could replace the world hub and since it would be an personal instance, it might be faster and easier to load and run. It might also have a common chat with other instances like that, allowing players to communicate, and a set of asura gates leading to most important locations – or at least to LA or other world hub.

Gilgamesh.1025:

I just don’t understand why some of these characters are there? I understand why our character is there. We are the commander (are we the commander?…lol, somewhat forgot, I know our character is the lead).

Well I think that the only and really reason is that Marjory is a personal projection of one of the writers. Which answers the second question: Marjory is the real hero and the mastermind of the story and our characters are just her sidekicks.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

This is what I was talking about earlier – you’re not coming off as having a problem with these two characters because of how they’re written or how the story works. You’re coming off as having a problem with them because of what you protest you’re not. The way you’re writing your pleas about what you really have a problem with just seem to highlight your thought patterns and show where your problem really lies.

Whether or not it’s true is another matter.

…

Yeah, Shakespeare’s play writing wasn’t all that untouchably awesome, my friend. It had loads of problems with characterization and plot, and was at the time a good example of popcorn theatre. (That is to say, the Michael Bay of Victorian theatre. Really good at being entertaining, not known so much for highbrow and being thought-provoking.) Why it got to the level of sacred cow these days is beyond me.

. . . his sonnets, on the other hand . . . different tale.

Looks like I simply MUST be a homopohobe because I dare to criticise our angelic lesbian duo. It’s unescapable. The more I deny it in anticipation of getting the homophobic label, the more sticky the label becomes… reminds me Catch 22.

Concerning Shakespeare, very briefly, since I do not want to diverge that much from the homophobic hatemongering I enjoy so much: he had to feed his troupe and did an outstanding job even at the pieces where he obviously aimed to simply please his audience – and make money. Thats what makes him a great writer.

Rhinala.1739:

MMO NPC’s are mostly flat and uninteresting

Nonsense. Try TSW for a good story and NPCs.
You simply cannot vivisect a ghoul without breaking a few bones…

Rhinala.1739:

I don’t know if you ever played the witcher 2 but how many people hated roche due to his nature, iv’e seen him as a brilliant character.

Please, do not compare Witcher 2 (and 1) writing with GW2 living story. Witcher is absolutely different level, it even beats the golden age of Bioware (stuff about as good as the Viconia romance in BG2, and that was some excellent writing). I loved every single character and dialogue in Witcher, no matter if good or evil. Because they were brilliantly written, at the quality level of the original novel series upon which it is based, and the same praise goes to the plot. Roche was a perfect character.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Fext.3614:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . it’s not like the Elminster thing, because that was highly dependent on how your resident GM handled that. Which is often poorly. D&D was one of those times where you were not limited by what the writers were putting in place, you could do what you wanted.

Still, people hated him with passion. I never dmastered anything set in FR, and neither played iirc. Yet I somehow KNEW Elminster sucks. Might be the same mechanism behind him being so annoying – that he was a personal pet of one of the writers…

We’re gonna have a problem.

See, let’s agree people hated him with a passion. People hate Drizzt Do’Urden with a passion. People hate Bilbo Baggins with a passion. The problem is always cited as the same: “poorly written”, without further explanation. That’s a problem because it means there’s no way to actually refute the assertion, since there’s no substance to the complaint.

Saying “Bilbo Baggins is poorly written, because he spends most of the book doing nothing but making trouble for the rest of the dwarves until suddenly in the third act he starts becoming useful to the point of making the dwarves look useless” is something which can be argued against, or discussed.

Saying “Kasmeer and Marjory are poorly written and should exit stage left out of the story ASAP” . . . doesn’t give anything to discuss.

(And by the way, Ed Greenwood personal pet NPC was not Elminster. It was Mirt the Moneylender.)

I don’t say I hated Elminster. I did not give a skritt about him because it was easy to avoid him – and this is my point. But here I want to play the game, which I like, but I just MUST interact with the NPCs which I hate if I do not want to miss significant parts of the game.

Concerning the “poorly written” matter: you obviously mix the story and the narration. Bilbo in you example has a good story, a story about a lazy hedonist who discovers himself under pressure. This is a good story, and with a good moral. But this story can be written several different ways. Depending on the skill of the storyteller.

Staying with your example, the way Tolkien wrote the book is brilliant. I love Hobbit way more than LOTR or Silmarilion. I enjoyed every sentence of the book because Tolkien was such a playfull narrator.

The way Jackson and company did the movie is far from brilliant. I was on the first movie in cinema, watched the other at home, and I do not really care about seeing the third one. But, fortunately, I do not have to care about it.

I think that the plot behind the LS2 is OK. The lesbian duo is OK. The selection of the other characters is pretty standard for the game, mostly dominant females with one male, who is properly harmless and tamed. But I can live with that, since I lived with that during the whole Crest of Stars series and I was having fun.

What I can’t stand is the way the characters speak and behave. And it is pretty legal by all standards to say that, since I do not have to go through the every line they say, proving what was wrong. Most of the dialogues, cinematics and cutscenes around A-iconics and B-iconics is just a royal pain in the kitten for me and not only for me. Because of the level of cliche and flatness of the characters. You can easily guess what they do and say in advance.

It is not the media or mature rating. It’s just the writing. Nothing else. If a routine Harlequin writer makes a book on Midsummer Night’s Dream plot, it will be as kittenty as the rest of the Harlequin books, maybe even worse.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . it’s not like the Elminster thing, because that was highly dependent on how your resident GM handled that. Which is often poorly. D&D was one of those times where you were not limited by what the writers were putting in place, you could do what you wanted.

Still, people hated him with passion. I never dmastered anything set in FR, and neither played iirc. Yet I somehow KNEW Elminster sucks. Might be the same mechanism behind him being so annoying – that he was a personal pet of one of the writers…

sorudo.9054:

i want scarlet back, she really needs more attention

Memories… oh, memories.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Now, let’s be honest, you’re coming off now for having other reasons than bad writing of wanting them gone. Especially with some of the tone of later replies, you’re coming off as though you want them gone because you feel offended by them.

Yeah. You’ve got a very valid point here.
Maybe this anti B-iconics crusade is just some way of me trying to find out why every encounter with the “good guys” NPCs in the game, be it with A-iconics or B-iconics makes me mad.
I’m sure it is not the gay thing. And by “sure” I mean sure… for reasons of my own. And after all, Logan & Jennah are as straight as you like and I hate them all the same. I just had a chance to stay away from them recently.
Maybe it is just something like the Elminster syndrome of old AD&D times.

Well enough of it… just give me the skip button, devs, and I’m OK.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

A heterosexual relationship is not the same thing as a homosexual relationship. The fact that you’re suggesting we view a homosexual relationship through a heterosexual lens to figure out whether or not it is ‘healthy’ or ‘acceptable’ is oppressive and degrading.

This statement is as false as offensive, since homosexual love is in all aspects equal to the heterosexual love.
Also, your post is nothing but a personal attack, and as such not worthy replying, but it illustrates an important point:

you put a lesbian label on any crappy writing, and suddenly it becames sacred and out of reach of any criticism, and everybody who dares to criticise is immediatelly called a bigot and homophobe.

lordkrall.7241:

You clearly have no clue about Norn culture. Norn are not human. You can’t apply human values to them.

Every specimen which needs to protect and raise their young, who cannot care about themselves until some age, works the same way: either you protect and love your children, or the children (and your genes) die. Therefore, every culture wich is OK from evolutional point of view values highly these parents who care for their children.
Just face it, Eir is a selfish piece of crap. And Brahams dad is the true hero.

Pandaman.4758:

the official word is they can’t make some of the cutscenes skippable because those are the ones that generally involve characters moving around and things being triggered in response to them moving around

I would call this a poor excuse, I’d be happy with a skip button and a shortwritten summary at the end, or just a simple pointer to the next quest…well at least until the quality of writting improves.

Acually I very often just went afk when the game was waiting for some stupid chat between NPCs to be finished, and I was always able to complete the next quest.

lordkrall.7241:

His mother is a legend. His father is basically an unknown nobody (when comparing to other Norn)

No, you are wrong. The “legend” is not really his mother, since she did not care about her biological child at all. OTOH the “nobody” is his caring PARENT who did trade a career and glory for his child happiness, and that is SOMETHING. Because a good and loving parent is something way more valuable than a skilled slayer (and from the dps point of view Eir sucks even as a slayer).

If the game wants to teach us the opposite point of view, it is bad.

KyreneZA.8617:

I would take it one step further: remove all the “Bore-conics” and their writers.

Well I’m behind you in the first statement, concerning the other one, well not all of them. But what they need is some feedback they obviously sorely miss and the best way how to get a feedback would be through some ingame poll.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

So what is it exactly about Kasmeer and Marjory that you hate? You should let us know in detail so we can decide how seriously to take your suggestion!

OK, let me explain.
Do this mental excersise: take Marjory Delaqua and swap her for a male, say a daredevil investigator named Marty d’Eau. Now replay all the dialogues between our Marty and Kasmeer, namely the dialogues related to their relationship.
Do you really like their relationship?
From my point of view, with the lesbian glamour gone, we are left with pretty much abusive relationship, which is not much about love, but about dependency and possession.
I don’t know if there was an intent to show a bad relationship, but I doubt it. This prejudice, that only these who are able to do a service to others or, even better, those who are “keeping their loved ones alive”, can get laid, is twisted to the extreme, yet, sadly, very widespread. It is a model of relationship from the patriarchal society, where the wife depens on her husband in everything and is, practically, dead without their kind protection. Like Kasmeer removed from Marjory custody.

Usualy when you run into some gender /equality issue (and this game suffers from it) the rule of thumb how to get a good point of view is to mentally swap genders of main protagonist. This way you can evaluate, for example, the relationship between, say, devout guardian Megan Thackeray, who deeply loves king John The Barefoot, and the complicated bond between freeminded adventurer Styr Egalkin and his daughter Beryl Styrdottir, who didnot knew who was her father until she was seven, since Styr let her alone with her mother and did not bother to show up… etc., etc.

OK, this is a valid point. But I still don’t understand what does Rytlock have to do with that. Is it because he is one of the few male NPCs in the game who is not somehow controlled by a female NPC? But never mind.

Hmm. So you in fact LIKE Rytlock, and for some odd reason you expect me to like him as well? :O I would never expect that.
Is it the fact I hate Delaqua and Meade what makes you believe I should like Rytlock (!) for some reason? Why?

Hmm, funny you just said you wanted to have Rytlock removed, and I agree with you because he is a militarist warmonger as many other charr. Now you disagree with yourself?

I would say the writers need some kind of a feedback. There should be a poll ingame to let people vote if they liked a friendly NPC (or hated antagonist NPC).

No, this is just wrong. It is like they decided to use russian style naming, and made Braham like Braham Eirowich Egalkin. The same mistake.

Lazaar.9123:

I don’t like Rytlock, he should be removed from the game with no explanation.

Be just and make it the whole DE. But they DID have a chance to make some likeable NPCs in the living story and Delaqua with Meade are such a critical fail. Everytime I run into them during the LS which is pretty often they make me mad.

Braham Eirsson should be correctly named Braham Borjeson. This is how the Icelandic naming works – the second name is derived from fathers name. Women are also named after father, but with extension dóttir (daughter). In this case it should be Borjedóttir (daughter of Borje).

Also since Eir did not show any interest in her child, and he himself did not knew who his mother was, until he was seven, there is no real reason to name Braham after his mother.

If Braham had to be named after his mother, he should be put into different culture. Spanish Roma use their mother name as the second name, for example Paco de Lucia means Paco, son of Lucia.

The previous attempt was deleted without any explanation I would understand so I will try another time, but now I will be as brief as possible to minimize a chance to write something which would cause this to be deleted:

Remove NPCs Marjory Delaqua and Kasmeed Meade from the game. They are very unlikable and annoying. Also many people I meet ingame do not like them, so I think that this step would be welcome by many.

Panites.6798:

So you just made ascended armour and weapons redunant.

Nope. I just want to move stats to character and leave damage and armor rating on equipment. I believe it makes more sense.
As for the stat level, I think that exo should equal plain fresh level 80, while ascended level should be gained by some additional quest chain (and maybe a payment to a NPC tutor).

Agony resistance infusions are OK on armor, since they add protection to the character. Anything else should go on character, and should be opened via “self improvement” quest chain.

Ascended weapons should have the higher damage they already have, and ascended armor the ability to receive agony infusions.

@Monoman maybe there is a misunderstanding – I do not see this as an armor feature. It should be rather a change of game mechanics.
Your stats should be tied to your character, so even naked, at level 80, if going the berserker style, your stats will be the same as, say the ascended stuff. Your armor rating would depend on the armor though.
Every piece of armor has the same level of stats, and it does not matter what type of armor it is. OTOH it is the function of character level. Obviously it belongs to the character and not to the armor.
Check feature envy antipattern http://blog.codinghorror.com/code-smells/

Remove stats from equipment and leave only defense on armor and damage on weapons. Move stats to a character and let players choose a “style” he wants to use, and the level of the stats would be dependant on character level, not equipment.

So if I decide to go berserker style, I will have maxed power, ferocity and precision, while the other stats are reset to 0. Then I go soldier style, and my stats go power, toughness and vitality.

The style should be changeable during combat with some timeout. This might add more variability to combat.

Maximum stats should depend on a level, and different styles should be acquired after completing a line of quests, given by a style master.

A player who mastered several styles may create a style of his own, setting a mix of stats and stat levels as he likes.

Let us have more signets on one signet slot, swappable out of combat.

For example, if a player places a new signet in a slot, the old one is not removed, but the new one is added, and the player can select, which one will be used, when out of combat.

This way you can keep just one weapon of given type for dungeons, world events, pvp or wvw.

Randulf.7614:

Also, the charr gave us Logan.

True. If nothing else, this itself is enough reason why to raze the Black Citadel to the ground and then again.

@Randulf thanks. As for the resources, I do not command them to deliver it tomorrow. I think if they decide to go this way, it would be pretty long term task to decide what events to implement, and, more importantly, what would be the best form.

Would it be better to have player impersonate some of the person which was involved in the event, like the Caithe episodes in ls2? Or would it be better to find some good excuse how to send the player himself to join the fight? What about friendly NPCs? They might be either the characters of the event, like the charr in Ascalon fractal, or maybe some long time companions, like, say, asuras from a crewe performing some research (I would prefer the other case if that asura is not Taimi or anything like her)?

Zohane.7208:

And since I don’t have über DPS on my engi, I can’t imagine the fight taking anyone more than 2 cycles. Strange.

Well you dont but unlike OP you are used to ranged combat. For a dungeon oriented war its a disgrace and a sign of noobness to go ranged (in most cases). I remember times when some elitist pug groups would kick you without warning if you dared to swap to a ranged weapon in a dung or frac.

Rethmar Stokestrike.1927:

You ABSOLUTELY need a group in order to kill the dragon on the last story mission.

I did it on a war toon, solo. My build was iirc axe – mace plus, and this is important – a bow.
Since you are a dedicated war I believe, you might find it very difficult since you tend to go melee by instinct. It might get even worse if you are frequently doing dungeon fast runs and fracs. But for the last boss the best tactics was to be highly mobile and stay at range.
I traded the usual offhand mace for a horn during this fight to keep me fast, also I swapped 1st trait in the last line for the 25% movement bonus, and I used bow to damage the tendril from distance. When I understood the mechanism of the fight, it was doable with not much problem. You just need to keep in mind that the most important task is to stay away from the pesky aoe and cc attacks of the boss.

This said, I think that many players had the same problem you did. From my point of view, everything in the Mordy content is way too much cc heavy while unccable itself, and once you get stunned or knocked you are almost surely dead since the attacks are followed by a massive aoe damage fields. This I believe is pretty cheap unless they really wanted to make you forget most of your defensive skills and concentrate solely on dodging.

The problem of this thread is that people use the word “racism” where they should use “grown-up and complex plot”. I don’t consider myself a racist (well at least I love the skritt) or sexist, but I do dislike the fact that this game is very politically correct and affirmative action heavy.

Nonsense. Legendaries are just a cosmetic stuff and they have nothing to do with p2w. Ascended weapons have the same stats. The ingame possibility to trade gems for gold and back is a good idea.

Many people do not know the lore.

So why not to make something like single player fotm in a form of a event chain, which would lead players through significant events in Tyria history. Like Ascalon or Taumanova fractals.

Can be nice for casual players, too, who cant properly play team content and therefore fotm since they do not have enough time.

zaced.7948:

the feline magnificence has nothing to fear.

As much as I like cats, I do not find charrs appealing. The khajiit in Skyrim were better cat people. Also I loved the way they speak.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Fext.3614:

Harper.4173:

Fext.3614:

Ascalon will rise again.

Ascalon Eternal!

We’ll get back at the Charr for what they did.

BTW can you still play the old GW? Is it also plaqued by the White Wolf style politicaly correct nonsense, when every race has a primary antagonist group from the same race (flame legion, nightmare court, sons of svanir etc.)?

No. No it is not.

It’s also not limited to White Wolf doing that. That was in Forgotten Realms quite a bit before it made it over to World of Darkness.

And what about the old GW? Still available, or gone?

Concerning the FR, I do not remember such thing, but I admit that I know just the lorebook from the old AD&D 2nd Ed. boxed set, and I was never much of a fan, preferring Planescape and Dragonlance.

segman.3560:

I want more serious racism conflicts in this game. HoT is giving me hope for sylvari being opressed by other races. That would be very engaging. I’m tired of cookie stories we were given so far.

Forget it, Sylvari and the Pale tree are personal pets of at least one storywriter. Most likely we will all protect them with our lives against Nightmare court who will be the true thralls of Mordy.
I doubt there will be ever a good dark plot. Oh I wish they took inspiration from something like The Broken Sword by Anderson. Maybe there is a majority of underage players.

Harper.4173:

Fext.3614:

Ascalon will rise again.

Ascalon Eternal!

We’ll get back at the Charr for what they did.

BTW can you still play the old GW? Is it also plaqued by the White Wolf style politicaly correct nonsense, when every race has a primary antagonist group from the same race (flame legion, nightmare court, sons of svanir etc.)?

Ascalon will rise again.

Dedlaw.9130:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey, now. A lot of us are not on the “I hate Traeherne” team!

Yes, you are. You’re just in denial about it.

He is just a tool of Pale tree. She is the real problem. She is a twisted pervert who loves to play psycho games with her children, and she knew all the time about the Sylvari being dragon zombies, and did nothing about it. And nobody can say a skritt against her since she adopted the holliest than thou position of the uberwise and godly Mother Nature.

Now it’s about time to add some positive comments:
NPCs and NPC interaction aside, I started to like the quest. And the “scavenger hunt” sends me to places I never knew about, which is a good idea.

It’s not really a quote, but I love the animation of skritt inspecting their rifles. This game needs more skrittness everywhere.

Vayne.8563:

It’s completely different in single player games because the narrative is designed for people who play those games. This narrative is designed for people who play MMOs, which is a very very different crowd.

A lot of MMO players skip quest text, skip story, and pretty much skip everything. The only way to get them to do stuff is to hit them over the head with it.

They can’t write an MMO story for me. They have to write an MMO story for everyone. Which makes it bad on those of us who play for story.

I think for example SWTOR has a decision driven story with your character in the middle, and TSW, AOC or LOTRO have more or less interesting story around the main character, albeit you can’t really decide the course of action, but it’s still worth reading and gives it a depth to the game. And during the character story in GW2 you are also a main character in the plot. I don’t really get your point.

The problem with good / bad story is not related to the type of the game.

Concerning LS2, many people, as the OP does, complain about being somehow left out of the main course of action, serving as a bodyguard for B-Iconics, who play the leading roles. This, in fact, is very unusual.

Vayne.8563:

Why aren’t you actually making the decisions then? Because you’re not a writer and you don’t know where the story is going. You can’t just make up any old thing. How would your character know? So the information is given to the NPCs around you who bring stuff to your attention.

Well you are not a writer in many other CRPG / MMOs and still your character is presented as the one who makes the decision (and sometimes, in games with more complex dialog systems, like Fallout, KOTOR etc. you really do decisions).