Guild Wars 2

Keep in mind during this that they want the player to be a heroic character no matter what. (Which is why they decided to not let you join the Inquest, Nightmare Court, etc). In one area you are helping the Scritt, in another you are slaughtering them. In one area you are crushing Drake eggs for a renown heart, and in another you are stopping poachers from stealing Drake eggs. In one area the Grawl are bad, and in another they aren’t. Why should I help a pirate get revenge on her ex-crew? Why am I friends with these Jotun when I was butchering their kin just over the last hill? For many of these, I think the writing team just had an idea and thought “well, this would be cool!” and then went at it, continuity be kitten ed. When I have raised this issue up in the past, people rebutted me by saying that, if you read what the renown heart or event person had to say that they would explain the inconsistencies, but this falls through on two accounts: the first is that Anet promised that they did not want you to be acting without knowledge of the purpose of the actions and that they did not want the players to have to read a “wall of text” to understand the context. And second, it just isn’t really true: after that comment, I went around and read what the NPCs had to say about the events, but there still was no decent explaination.
If Anet would just identify a group of people as bad and keep it that way, then I would be cool with it: you tell me the centaurs are bad one time, then I don’t need to be told why I’m killing them: it’s because they’re bad! But if you flip flop, you need to explain it. GW1 did this with the Tengu when they had certain Tengu tribes be good Tengu, and other ones were bad. GW2 did this with the Hyleck and their colors identifying their behavior. But with other races such as Grawl, Jotun, Scritt, and even on occasion Pirates, this flip flop is unexplained.
But hey, maybe this is all because Anet was crunched for time when first make GW2 and now that it is released, maybe the living world content is bad-writing free, right? Wrong.
From Rox and Braham exchanging childish quips, to Ellon and Evon showing a lack of maturity and depth in their squabbles (which is then mediated by the Master of Peace, who not only had mismatching written to actually spoken dialogue, but also takes the prize for worst voice actor in GW2), the writing still shows little to no improvement over the earlier writing. It still is silly, cheesy, and shallow.
I’m stopping here just because this is really long, but I could go on for a good while longer. So while the world and lore of GW is deep and fascinating, the writing that coats the surface is terribly written. Why is this? I have no idea. It does seem to me that there is a little bit of a lack of self-awareness and maturity in general at Anet (especially considering their poor reception of criticism and underhanded ways in dealing within game issues / exploits) so this may just stem from that, but it really is unfortunate that it is there. For me, I enjoy the game by skipping all of the cutscenes and making up my own stories. So there you have it.

As far as how the orders relate to each other, they squabble over the most petty things and trade petty insults. I thought the Vigil was made up of brave soldiers. Aren’t solders disciplined? I thought the Priory was made up of knowledgeable researchers. Don’t they have any self-control? I thought the Order was made up of secretive, discerning spies and agents. Aren’t they above such behavior? Apparently not. The fate of Tyria is left in the hands of three orders with the maturity of children under the leadership of a weak Sylvari who takes credit for the actions of the player. That’s encouraging.

So the orders fall flat. But what of the races? I actually don’t think most of them are bad. I like the norn, because they actually live up to their rough and tumble attitude. I like the Asura, because they are appropriately snooty and proud in their own genius. The humans are, unfortunately, kind of dull to me. A story arch about joining a circus? Really? I played that on in beta and it was so pointless. The Sylvari actually have the most depth to me, especially in the character of Caithe, who can show a darker side every now and then.

The race that falls flat the most to me are the Charr. From being a race of powerful, warmongering beasts in GW1 they have dwindled into being a dull compromise. There are charr like Rytlock, who still seem very powerful and commanding and appropriately vicious, but then you have little bits of goofy voice acting here and there, light hearted writing (for charr, that’s not really okay. At least in the way Anet did it) and a just general lack of a consistent aesthetic to their racial personality in general. To me, Tybalt is, once again, the epitome of the issue.

And I know some might say that this is due to a change in cultural attitudes: they no longer follow their old “gods” and have relaxed as a society, but I think that Pyre Fierceshot is proof that this just isn’t true. He was one of the first to defy the Charr gods and he was still very much a serious character, even killing a prisoner in cold blood, much in the same way Caithe does at one point.

How this translates into the open world is another matter. It seems like the same issue with the charr – a lack of focused writing – afflicted the open world. To put it simply, it’s an inconsistent mess with exceptions and oddities littering the landscape.

EDIT: After reading other comments confirming my thoughts about the story telling in the game, I ’ve decided that it might be more helpful (and interesting) to instead have people give their thoughts on what could be improved in the way Anet tells their story instead of just having a long hate post.
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I have brought two characters to the end of the game and have completed my initiation into all three orders with three different races, so I have a pretty good idea of the writing and story telling in general in GW2. And, to be honest, I found most of the writing to be rather juvenile and shallow. I still love the game, but I love it for the lore behind it and the world around it, and not for the moment-to-moment writing. So I’m not trying to rip the game a new one, I’m just giving my thoughts on it. So if you love the story telling, that’s fine! But, for me, it really didn’t live up to what I thought it could be. Here’s why.

The original Guild Wars had many silly things about it: many of the skill names, boss names, and mission events were pop culture references and there was a flippant vibe to many aspects of the writing. But I could still take the threats of the Lich, Shiro, and Abbadon seriously.

But for some reason I can’t do the same with GW2. Even some of the most serious events – the deaths of certain characters, the fall of Claw Island, etc, etc – seemed kind of silly to me. Claw Island wasn’t bad I guess, but it still wasn’t as hard hitting as it could have been.

I think the main difference between the silliness in GW1 and GW2 is that in GW1, the world had an edge to it, and the plot rarely tried to be goofy, so the silliness was simply another flavor mixing around in the pot that sort of just colored the experience. But, in GW2, they often use silliness (Tybalt) as a primary form of exposition. So while in GW1 the humor was under the surface, in GW2 it’s really in your face. And then when the game tries to be more serious it fails at it because it has trouble actually being grave and any somber event that takes place is framed in poorly delivered jokes.

Let’s take a direct example that can be compared from GW1 to GW2: The Order of Whispers. There are going to be some spoilers about the orders so DON’T READ IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS. Skip down to the >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> further down the page.

In the original GW, you can have The Master of Whispers accompany you as a necro Hero, a sort of dedicated NPC follower. The Master of Whispers and his entire order seem very dangerous and influential, rarely being seen in mass, with usually an agent here or there, and usually said agent was in disguise. The Master of Whispers himself, despite being out in the open as a Hero NPC, was very mysterious.

Compare to the Order of Whispers in GW2: in the personal story, they squabble with the other orders like children and then assign you with Tybalt. Tybalt is a clumsy, flippant, loudmouthed charr who is anything but a charr or a Whispers agent. When Tybalt dies (as every single order guide does at Claw Island… because Anet couldn’t figure out how to incorporate them into the rest of the story and instead replaces them with Trahearne? Who everyone hates? Something like that?) I really didn’t care. In fact, I was relieved.

The Order of Whispers isn’t the only order that is messed up. Take the Sieran and the Priory. At first, their arc started off as being very promising: I was paired with a Sylvari that I actually liked (for once!) and we were going off to look for an ancient artifact. Seems very in line with the Priory, right? But eventually that just turned into a giant brawl over the Sanguinary Blade and the tomb crawling research expedition ends.

And the Vigil… well, they attack people. So I guess that’s cool.
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