Guild Wars 2

With Bobby Stein and Angel McCoy working as the lead writers for the Living Story, I just now pondered: What are Ree Soesbee and Jeff Grubb doing?

Grubb wrote the story for Nightfall (regarded as the best by many players) and Eye of the North, and as I understand Soesbee was responsible for the Lore and Continuity transision to GW2 , so i would like to think the two are still influencing GW2’s development.

Grubb has a blog and still seems to work at AN (" …the new season of the Guild Wars 2 Living Story has just launched, and has gotten great responses, which makes everyone at work very happy.") but does anyone know in what capacity?
Soesbee’s blog seems all but abandonned, the last update being from 2012.

So if anyone could help me out, I’d much appreciate it : )

Question: I really cannot recall this, did the characters in the original GW refer to the PC in any way? Did they talk to us or even mention us to anyone? Or were we only the adventurer leading the party into battle?

I for one couldn’t care less about my character.
I made up a cool backstory for him but since there is no way to advance an individual backstory within the game, that’s where it stopped.
I think it’s time to get over the idea of involving the player as a character in the story. They can only be a bad character because they are replacable because they have to be replacable by any other player character.

I actually quite like Canach.
He felt dangerous, menacing (at least in the short stories, maybe not the game itself sadly), but not simply evil.

He was a vigilante, trying to do good (free the people the Consortium basically enslaved) but by the wrong means (murder and destruction).
I’m rather disappointed that he seems to have done a complete 180 into a vanilla good guy, but there is still room for AN to turn that around again.

People going mad or becoming corrupted is high school level story telling, but the Sylvari being affected is only logical with Mordremoth awakening.
Scarlet got her load hard and preemptively because of Omadd’s “science device” so now it’s time to see how Mordremoth affects normal Sylvari (Aerin was Soundless but whatever).

Canach could fit into this as well, though I’d hoped they’d save him for another story arch, so his personality and not the fact that he’s a sylvari would be the reason for his involvement.

Mordremoth didn’t specifically order Scarlet to awaken him, his presence drove her insane and in her insanity (for whatever reason) she decided to stir the powers that created her.
Also, since the dragons are sentient beings (unlike bears) it seems obvious that they want to awaken and stay awake for as long as possible.

Arenanet has always been amazing at world building. Sweeping movements of the world, varied cultures and landscapes is what they do better than any other company.

When it comes to details though, the problems begin.
I don’t know whether you played GW1, but it was no different. People romanticise the past, but the story the players experienced was brought across pretty badly and not engaging at all.
When you ask a lore veteran they could tell you what happened in those campaigns and you’d be amazed at how intricate it seems, but actually playing it was a chore.

I ask you though: How much much great story can actually exist for the players to play in an MMO? They are pretty bad from a game design perspective compared to single player games.

I will stick around for whatever AN wants to do with Tyria because that world has won me over for good, but sometimes I wish they would just make singleplayer or co-op games.

Well, since thieves lorewise spend next to all their time in cities and preferrably in their underbellies, I’d say they would know what’s going on and where to get information from. The stealth ability would probably help as well.

Yeah, it’s the old hypocrisy of slaughtering countless goons, but once a vilain with an actual name pops up, people want to spare them because they don’t want to “become their enemy.”

There have been a lot of posts devoted to this topic eversince launch.

Tengu, Largos, and Kodan would all lend themselves great to being playable races, but:
- The Kodan will probably be introduced once we take the fight to Jormag.
- The Largos will probably be introduced once we get more info on the Deep Sea Dragon and underwater combat is made engaging.
- The Tengu will probably be introduced once Primordus becomes more of a threat, since the Dominon of Winds is already having trouble with destroyers burrowing through and underneath its walls.

When these things will happen is anyone’s guess, though.

Compare it to the fact that a frog can be boiled alive without any problem as long as you turn up the heat of the water very slowly. The frog will not jump out of the water unless there is a sudden shift in temperature.
Similarly, the slow rise of magic levels will wake up mordremoth very slowly. But if the graph of the magic levels starts jumping all over the place, suddenly it’s interest is piqued!

I really enjoyed the last few LS patches, as someone that mostly just comes in for the story bits, and to see what’s new.

But a few things in the last confrontation with Scarlet turned me off a bit:

“Don’t you want to know why I did it? All this chaos and destruction?” – This sounds like something you’d read in a forum post, or something the devs may post as a facebook pre-release tagline, not something an in-world character would say.

“We’re Tyrians! We don’t liek getting pushed around!” – This reminds me a lot of the scenes in the Spiderman movies – “We’re New Yorkers and we stick together against any enemy!” Although Braham may just be a bit thick, before this, there has been no sign of a continental identity that unifies the races. They bound together against Zhaitan true, but for the most part, tensions between races persist. (And if there were none it’d be boring and stupid.)

This is pretty much it. It’s not much and I’m sure it will get better over time, I just wanted to push my opinion forward.

However, the GW2 version is based on an in-game characters dialogue. This means it is what that character thinks, not what is necessarily true.

We know that dragons consume magic, but whether or not their champions can do the same is unknown.
However, since we haven’t heard really anything about Tequatl this does make sense in lieu of the story.

I doubt a bookah such as you would understand the technical complexities of the asuran gate technology.

^this, oh god, this!!

I know AN wanted to get rid of questing as a way of leveling and rushing the player from zone to zone, but I miss actually engaging with npcs.
I recently watched the Extra Credits: Questing episode and was amazed how much you had to engage with npc’s to get to the quests. Waving at them, talking to them, using key phrases, having certain items equipped… We don’t need kill and fetch quests for exp, but we do need quests that show us the npc’s on Tyria actually do something. Quests that are worth completing because they tell a great little story, where fun is intrinsic rather than extrinsic.

I for one think Caith might be the one to kill her.
Scarlet said she knew about Caithe’s dark secret, so maybe in the middle of sharing that with us, Caithe might decide to silence her.

^signed!

mustbeatleast15characters

what lordkrall said,

but also because there is no way to include multiple paths in a release schedule that is as terrifyingly fast as the one of the Living Story.
There is a certain amount of suspension of disbelief you need for games, especially MMOrpgs. Just like when playing Pen&Paper rgp’s you just need to shut your pie hole and accept certain things, so things can run smoothly and the DM doesn’t ragequit.

The end is the best
Thanks for sharing!

I suggest you just go to your local bookstore and ask them. Usually they can order it within a day or two.

The reason npcs are in the spotlight is because they actually have personalities. the player character is a blank slate, which is good, so the player can identify with them more easily, but it also makes them a completely boring character (not much of a character at all).

If your best friend was from, say, another country with a very different culture than yours and would suddenly ditch you entirely for something you don’t believe is important, wouldn’t you get upset?

This theory has been floating around the forums for quite a while now, basically since information about the Jungle Dragon “Mordremoth” first cam into the limelight.
Imo, it’s very much possible, but there’s going to have to be a whole lot of explaining, and exceptions for the Sylvari.

Weren’t the old destroyers named by the dwarfs ? I believe they just like being dramatic^^ Seriously, “Destroyer of Life”? Who talks like that?
Also, the old destroyers seemed to be more powerful than the ones we’r confronted with today, since they were in closer proximity to Primordus and his champions.

I feel like you want to play a singleplayer game. Themepark MMOs can not present the player impact in the same way a game you play alone can.
If you want to impact the world, play a sandbox MMO, like EVE.

huehuehuehuehue

Whenever an update rolls around the player gets a mail, explaining what’s going on and where (s)he has to go. Additionally, in the top right corner there is usually some sort of “quest log” similar to the Personal Story.

I like the idea of a dragon Champion like Tequatl or the Shatterer attacking cities, similar to the way dragons would battle merchants in Skyrim.

An Elder Dragon attack however would be completely disastrous to any city, no matter how big. Since we are talking lore here, and not the botched Zhaitan boss fight, Elder Dragons are hundreds of meters long, and leave havoc in their wake similar to Tornados or Hurricanes.
Even the Black Citadel or Divinity’s reach would be wiped off the map.

This does seem quite plausible to me, however:
The question remains how Mordremoth controls these other pale trees and more to the point, how the teachings of Ventari simply broke that control. The control the other dragons have over their minions seems to be complete and undefiable, so why are the Sylvari different?

Also, the general theory of the Sylvari being dragon minions feels quite odd to me, since they are so fundamentally different.

I still have hope that the foreshadowed character death(s) are only red herrings and Destiny’s Edge 2.0 will never come to be.
Hopefully Braham and Roxx/Taimi will stay as a duo, just as Marjory and Kas, and Canach will reclaim his title as a freaking bada!ss !

Q2+3: True, there are a bit more important females than males in the story, as opposed to the other way around as it is in traditional fantasy. I think it’s weird though, that people get hung up on asking “is everyone represented equally?” rather than “is the story good?” And as long as that’s the case (which imo it is, especially these last couple of weeks) it doesn’t matter whether there are more females, males, frogs, aliens, or cats.
Q4: So, because AN included a lesbian couple in a tasteful way it means the writers are immature? I say, to the contrary.
Q5: The arenanet writers are responsible for the characters we encounter, NCsoft has (I belive) only very marginal impact on the story. NCsoft does however have the last say in if/when an expansion is released.
Q7: The only information we have is that he is (assumed to be) a human male (from marjory’s short story), he is very well informed, and he is “one of the good guys”.
Q8: Creating actual player impact is almost impossible in an mmo, since the decisions you make can not be honoured in the way a traditional (bioware) rpg can.
Q9: The 8 professions we have access to now is probably all there ever will be. AN was very careful to fill every potential playstyle into these professions. More weapons however may be added in the future (the scythe’s role however is fulfilled by the greatsword.)

You’re kidding though, right?
These last 4 LS releases are supposed to wrap up Scarlet’s story arc, and they had a huge amount of story content compared to previous releases!
People flipped tables as soon as they heard that even a fraction of the story content would be in PvP territory! The only reason why there is even a bit is that AN likes to have in-lore reasons for all of their releases.

The problem with cutscenes (even simpl GW1 style cutscenes) is that thy’re time extensive.
AN is doing better with dialogue recently but adding cutscenes would cost them sevral days for each update, days they don’t have with their development cycles.

I actually prefer staying in control of my character when npcs are talking, especially when they’re not just standing around and are actually animated.

If you had paid any attention to what is going on with the Living Story at all, you would know that AN is wrapping up this season of the living World -i.e. Scarlet’s arc- with 4 big updates, the last of which will (probably) release on the 4th of march.

yes

15characters

Also, rants regarding the fundamentals of Scarlet’s writing are so 2013 ^^

AN is working on new ways to experience past Living Story events in the game. But that will take time, and will most likely not involve simply “replaying prior content” but rather other ways to experience the story aspects.

While AN keeps reminding us that the Living Story can and will bring features normally only seen with the release of expansions (major skill/trait/gameplay updates, new zones, etc.), they also keep saying that the idea of expansions is still very much on the table.
It is only the stand-alone campaign model they have abolished, since it won’t work with the Living Story.

1. I assume you are speaking of Scarlet’s “Alliance Scrap board”, right? The crossed line between the two races doesn’t necessitate that she tried to ally them together, rather than just weeding out ideas.
The waters in the Dominion of Winds won’t be large enough for an entire water-habituating species to live in.
There has been no mention from either species of interactions between the two.
2. I would say, it is very much a version of stealth or invisibility, and it fits the ninja-esque theme of the Largos quite well, too.
I would refrain from connecting invisibility to the mursaat like this. That would be like equating a stove to a volcano.
3. Although the two models share rough similarities they are distinctly different. Superficial resemblance doesn’t mean they are connected.
Even though I can’t count out zhaitan may have affected the Largos, I’ll give them the benefit f the doubt until we have more information.

I do like the idea of Tengu and Largos interacting, since the Tengu are very much Samurai-esque whereas the Largos are more assassin-like, which would make for an interesting dynamic. Though I don’t think they have a lot of common ground to have those interactions occur on.
The Tengu will most likely be the next playable race, and the Largos will be released once the hunt for Bubbles begins, i.e. once ANET has found a way to make underwater combat fun

I feel like this “lack of realism” is more a “lack of focus”.
AN’s design philosophy is very inclusive, in terms of both game design and story.

So, instead of focusing on one complex area of Tyria (like DR) they went for a broad spectrum of all playable races and orders.

@Peter Thomas:
You have to keep in mind though, there are players that are killing the boss 7+times a week and there are those that maybe try it once a week, succeed maybe every other week.
If the rewards are really valuable, casual players will be happy, but the economy will be flooded with the rewards the hardcore players rake in.
That’s why WoW has their “you can only try each boss once a week”-buisness.

And if the bosses respawn every 2 hours it’s impossible to find other people to try it with, because people don’t gather around at certain fixed times.

Imo, the problem lies with the boss spawning way too often. Let him spawn every 2 hours for the first week, but after that reduce it to 3 times a week, and later even to once a week.
That way, people get to figure out the boss relatively quickly in the beginning, but later they don’t know him down once per day. With limited spawns the rewards could be bumped up significantly, giving a really incentive to go back and kill him. And people will actually participate because they only get one chance per week to get the awesome loot, meaning no more empty encounters.
That would require consistent spawn times, e.g. Friday 17:30 GMT. With the ability to guest to other timezones (should something come up) but only getting one try at the boss.

MMO’s move and expand slowly.

GW1 was pretty lackluster at launch, even quite a while after that. Only with time and new campaigns did the game improve and I think the same will happen to GW2.
Although, they should probably give us more/clearer insight into what new features they are working on.

You can basically justify every race/class combination to some extent. Some are obviously less common than others, but possible non the less.

Your specific example of a Norn Engineer: Snowleopard is the cunning spirit, Raven the spirit of knowledge(-ish). This and curiosity may drive a norn (maybe a physically weaker norn) to turn to wielding a kittening giant kitten flamethrower to burn his enemies to the ground.

I think we can all agree that the overflow system needs to be reworked in the near future, whether it be a system akin to GW1’s districts or (as suggested) a private overflow for large groups.

However, locking these events in instances would really hurt the casual players. (For the most part) Casuals just turn up at these events, get carried or maybe are invited into groups, possibly a teamspeak server, and can just play.
By instancing this content they have to specifically seek out large groups/guilds to play which for a lot of people is just a hassle.
And this will mean, a raidfinder and instant group invite systems are not far away.

Flytrap.8075:

NinjaChris.9340:

I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but this is something that will simply never happen.

Most game companies shudder at the though of excluding content from the player. That’s why a lot of big games show everything they have actively to the player, leaving very little to discover through exploration. Splitting a game into different paths basically means wasting time, work, and money on for example 40 hours of gameplay of which the player will only see 10.

Asking AN to create 8 missions on a bi-weekly schedule, only one of which will be experienced by the average player, instead of making a string of 8 missions is a ludicrous demand.

Wasn’t that supposed to be the basis of the personal story?

Call me crazy, but it’s supposed to be PERSONAL.

Yes, that’s what I talked about in my edit.
That is why the PS sucked. We are not playing Mass Effect here. This isn’t an RPG epic in which every choice can be honored to a T (which not even Mass Effect did). This isn’t some mystical land where video game content just appears.
This is only a game, and compromises have to be made and over-reaching will be punished.
That is why the Personal Story fell short and this is why the Player Character is only having little personal involvement in the Living Story.
Perfectly representing every players wishes is a luxury no game, and especially no MMOrpg can provide.

I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but this is something that will simply never happen.

Most game companies shudder at the though of excluding content from the player. That’s why a lot of big games show everything they have actively to the player, leaving very little to discover through exploration. Splitting a game into different paths basically means wasting time, work, and money on for example 40 hours of gameplay of which the player will only see 10.

AN did split up content in their game before, in the Personal Story. 5 paths for the playable races (each one having different paths in and of themselves), then 3 paths for the different orders. This meant they produced an excruciatingly large amount of content, but a single playthrough of a storyline consisted of very little, it felt disconnected and rushed.
Asking AN to create 8 missions on a bi-weekly schedule, only one of which will be experienced by the average player, instead of making a string of 8 missions is a ludicrous demand.

Yeah, this is a complaint that is brought up every couple of weeks and it’s a valid one in my opinion.
Though AN have said they are considering and working on ways for players to experience the old content.

Even though she is crazy, it still doesn’t why she is doing what she’s doing.
Even insane people (at least in fiction) do things for a reason, even though that reason is not, well, reasonable to a sane person.
I guess we’ll find out her actual motivation in the game.

It’s not the final chapter, though.

I would have liked to be surprised as well, but AN really needs and wants to push the hype on the ending of this Living Story arc, and video-games are marketed best by showing giant bosses.

I guess, for the future it just means I will be avoiding most of their trailers if I want the surprise.

I sincerely hope they don’t do this.

Braham and Rox work good as a duo and Kasmir and Marjory do too. Shackling the 4 (plus a yet unannounced asura) to each other would just not make a lot of sense, as there is no reason for them to actually stick together. Sure, let them fight Scarlet as a team, but don’t force creating a team just “because Destiny’s Edge did it”.

If they kill off Kasmeer that’d be fine (though I hope she lives, since I like her) but if they insist to introduce a sylvari into a group that already feels forced just so very playable race can be part of it, that’d just be a stupid idea.
AN’s insistence on involving every playable race in their stories in equal measure is the exact reason why a lot of the Personal Story was as bad as it was. If they want to show us that they’re turning over a new leaf with their storytelling approach, they must stop doing things because of equality and inclusivity, and focus of just telling a good story.

Erukk.1408:

I really had to test my googling skills to find it.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/17543-arenanet-the-sylvari-soul-%e2%80%93-angel-mccoy-on-writing-the-sylvari/page__st__240#entry835571

Regina Buenaobra: I’m not actually irritated about the sex discussion. Perhaps I should have included some smilies. I think it’s totally fine that people talk about those things, even if they are not part of the game that people can play.

It was more a reaction to the fact that fans’ focusing on sex, subsequently asking questions about sex, and then finding out that sylvari do have sex somehow gets turned into “catering to sexual fantasies” when we treat the sylvari about the same as we do other races with respect to sex.

Wow, you really dug deep

Although, I’m still unconvinced. A community manager’s comment doesn’t do it for me, I guess.
In terms of your link, I think when McCoy said “Sylvari are born physically male and female” the community jumped to the conclusion “that means genitalia!”. But I think it simply means that the Sylvari feature both male and female stature, with fitting voices.
Again, there probably won’t be an official clear statement, since the priority for that is really low.