Guild Wars 2

I know i can proceed without completing personal storyline, but i always try to finish them on a level they are meant to be finished on… So the rewards for the missions are useful for me…. if i was higher level, those rewards become junk, and missions seem a bit too easy…

My point was that i would love to see personal story integrated within open world exploration to remove feeling of the huge seam between the two…

For example… Story quests would not be separated instances, but special kind of events… those events would be marked green, instead of regular orange events, and they would take place where original instanced quests occurred. At the end of every storyline event, an animation would appear informing players what just happened and how they contributed to their personal progress. Once finished, next time player would encounter the same storyline event, it would act as a normal (orange marked) event.

The biggest challenge is that for many of the missions, state of the game world has to be altered, be it daytime, or asset arrangement, so that is the reason quests are instanced…. to arrange more thrilling environment… but i doubt it was worth the huge separation of open world and personal storyline.

I believe skilled gameplay designer could make personal storyline work even in openworld mode, but while arenanet seems to have a lot of skilled artists, whoever was behind gameplay design seems of mediocre skill.

I have to say that i am very disappointed by the personal storyline. It seems like original intention was good, but execution seems rather poor, and is probably the weakest aspect of the game. It is not in line with rest of the game quality.

To me, personal story certainly does not feel like adventure. Everytime i have to go with the storyline, i feel like “Hmmm, i gotta finish few of those boring instanced missions before i can move onto the next area :/”

What really feels like adventure in GW2 is the exploration of large persistent world… finding new places, fighting your way into the deeply defended areas, and exploring interesting landscape. Linear storyline in instances absolutely breaks the joy of persistence and non linear gameplay for me. It is an unnecessary distraction from the persistence of the world.

The execution of personal story goes against everything i heard in the GW2 trailes prior to release. I heard that player will experience rich, living and persistent world, and will work with other players to achieve goals. That feeling is indeed there but it always dies as soon as i encounter solitary instanced mission.

To me, storyline is simply a buzzkill, and a big demotivation to proceed with the game. What i hate most is the feeling that my progress in the game world and the progress in the personal storyline are very separated. It feels like two different games, where i play the fun one, but every once in a while, i have to jump over to the boring game to unlock new level in the fun game.

Now, for the suggestion.

My suggestion would be to completely ditch any instanced storyline, and made personal story non-linear and part open word exploration. Where any random direction player takes brings him an unique storyline… where pieces of storyline are scattered all around the extensive and beautiful game world, and where player feels a freedom of exploration, instead of being served a plate of flat linear story under their nose.

Very nice example of the main storyline implemented within game world in a non-linear way is The Elder Scrolls series.

I hope at least someone will read this wall of text.

Thank you in advance.

Thanks very much! My gameplay experience improved drastically!!! But i still feel it’s not 100% there… horizontal space still does not feel like 90° angle appropriate for PC gaming.