Showing Posts For keeganrms.6301:
Honestly, the community is going to be responsible for the life or death of this game. for an MMO, community is everything. Ever been to a Video Game news site lately? See the comments on GW2-related posts? Disgraceful.
What’s most puzzling to me is the posters on those comments and especially here on this forum seem to reflect the scum of the GW2 community. Bottom-feeders with no self-esteem picking fights for no reason and acting like children… All while making these hilarious claims like, “I’ve been gaming since before you were born!”
Yet every instance in every map I’ve ever played on GW2 has been the polar opposite. People seem eager to help each other. Almost no name-calling or holier-than-thou B.S.
I don’t think this game will die, per se. I think the 11-year-old keyboard warriors posing as 30-year-old sex gods will be just annoying enough to make the adults leave. The demographic will quickly shift and from there it only goes downhill.
I will add that the Living Story cut-scenes are dramatically better than the Personal Story cut-scenes. Though they still suffer from a lack of interaction between the characters, themselves and the environment, and though the painful one-shot poorly-composed camera moves have returned from Guild Wars 1, there has been a dramatic improvement and I find myself way more interested and immersed in the story. Playing through the end of Flame and Frost gave me a whole new feeling of closeness to Tyria. I’m glad this has improved but, if you want the player-base to grow and solidify, you have to improve the content the new players will be experiencing. Nobody likes to hear “oh, it gets better later.” Everyone sees the beginning of the Personal Story. Not everyone trucks through all the way to see the Living Story Content. (i.e. most of my friends!)
In terms of improvement, the writing has been done and produced and its really not possible to go back and completely change everything.
However, I think the writing might be more appreciated if the cut-scenes gave us more than two people spitting out lines at each-other.
I have gone into a lot of detail on the history of Guild Wars cutscenes and a possible (and fiscally plausible) future for the Guild Wars 2 Personal Story in an another forum post, so I’ll save my spiel.
Basically:
- Guild Wars 2 cinematics are currently worse than they have ever been in Guild Wars’s history.
- The lack of visual narrative in Guild Wars 2 cutscenes makes every single character feel hollow and lifeless.
- The lack of visual narrative also takes away from the tone and pace of the story, making it feel boring, long and drawn out.
Don’t believe me? Here’s an example of a shooting script for the first human cut-scene after the run-in with the earth elemental using the pre-existing dialogue:
——————————————————
INT. TAVERN – DAY
Player opens his eyes. He finds himself in a bedroom with Priestess of Dwayna looking over him. Player rubs his eyes and sits up.
PLAYER
Where am I? What happened?
The priestess gently lays Player back down onto the bed.
PRIESTESS
You were injured when the elemental exploded,
She places a rag on Player’s head.
PRIESTESS (CONT’D)
Captain Thackary brought you here personally.
Priestess carefully undresses the bandage on Player’s arm
PRIESTESS (CONT’D)
You’ve been out for three days…
Player rubs his head and rests his head down on the pillow
PRIESTESS
You had lots of visitors. Villagers you rescued, Some seraph,
Player winces at the pain as she dabs some magical healing paste on his wound.
PRIESTESS
(Trying to remember)
…and a nervous, shady-looking character who came by every day but wouldn’t give his name…
Player smiles to himself and props himself up on his elbows.
PLAYER
That’d be my friend Quinn.
(Pointing to the next room.)
You might want to check your supply cabinets… I’ll find out what he wanted once I’m fully recovered.
Priestess pulls the rag from Player’s head
PLAYER
(Stretching for the first time in 3 days.)
What should I do now?
FTB
——————————————-
Okay, so there, in my poorly written shooting script, you can already see that these characters now have some life in them. They aren’t just animatronic robots repeating sound files in sequence any more, they interact with each other and with the environment in ways that make them actually seem human and, therefore, are more able to identify with. Therein lies the problem with the Personal Story, in my personal opinion.
(edited by keeganrms.6301)
Greetings!
Back as an early teen, I picked up the first Guild Wars. The awesome thrill ride the main story offered was really awesome to me, despite the cheesy dialogue. When Guild Wars 2 was announced, my friends and I were as hyped as any no-income highschooler could be. Shortly after, Guild Wars featured a paid content expansion that let you travel back in time to visit some landmark events in the GW lore. These new short stories featured polished cinematics and involved some great storytelling. I remember reading an article somewhere where an Anet rep was saying it was just a glimpse of how the Guild Wars 2 cinematics might look, evolving beyond the hurky-jerky one-shot camera moves from Guild Wars 1.
Flash forward to the Guild Wars 2 beta. The cinematics all take place in front of a stagnant (albeit beautiful) backdrop with the character, limited to two-at-a-time, standing in profile talking at each-other with lines of dialogue being spat out systematically. “Fear not! Its just the beta! See that ‘Work in Progress’ Stamp? They’re saving those juicy cinematics for a later release!” I said to myself.
So what is the core problem?
Personally, I think the core problem is either a lack of vision or a lack of successful translation from vision to reality. The story is there. Sure, it may suffer from some awkward writing at times and a lot of high fantasy tropes, but so do a lot of movies and games , but we tend to skim over them because we are so immersed at the time.
How do we fix it?
Without re-writing the entire story, re-recording the dialogue, or any other extremely expensive bit of production, how do we improve the Personal Story to make players feel more invested and interested? If the developers included personal story when they said they want to polish the core game as much as they can before expanding, I have two proposals and I’ll start with the less plausible of the two.
Option A – A Return To Traditional Cinematics
I’m talking about what we saw earlier from the Guild Wars 1 Bonus pack. Emotions and actions being as important as words . Traditional cinematics are not a walk in the park. I have never developed a game, so I can only speak from my personal experience in film and motion graphics. Storyboards need to be written out; cameras need to be animated and tweaked; characters and objects within the scene need to be animated; polish is a long and monotonous process. Option A is less plausible simply because of all this work. Think of all the cinematic sequences in GW2 and think about how long that would take (And, of course, time is money).
Despite the time and costs, this would certainly take the story you have and make it one of the best stories you could find on the MMO market, hands down. You just need some good animators and a director with enough vision to take on the job (COUGH.[Just Kidding{No, really}]).
Option B – Theatrical Cinematics
“But Mr. Keegan”, you ask, “aren’t the Guild Wars 2 cinematics already theatrical?” Yes and no. If your definition of a theatrical performance is some people on a stage saying things, then it is. However, anyone who has been involved with theater knows that theatrical storytelling is all about movement and expression and showing your words, rather than saying your words.
A theatrical cinematic style would enhance the current format by keeping a static camera and the lovely backdrops that the art-gods of Arenanet have crafted. The addition of props, facial & body expressions, and more characters on-screen would adhere to the format in-place, while greatly enhancing the visual storytelling which, to be honest, is just as important as the verbal storytelling.
In Colclusion,
The potential for storytelling in the Guild Wars universe is something I have always been awe-struck by. Having done some Guild Wars 2 storytelling of my own, I decided that the lore was too rich and the story was too epic to suffer the state it is currently in. To recap:
- A film-style cinematic approach would cost a lot of time and resources, but would ultimately be the most conducive to the story and to the player’s experience
- A theatrical-style cinematic approach would be easier technically, if less immersive. However, this approach would still produce a better story experience for the player.
I’ll see you all in-game and look forward to your feedback!
-Keegan
OP, you are going places with that talent. Best of luck!
Well, if we’re taking the story seriously, he’s an idiot. The lord commander of the pact goes out on field missions with his lieutenants?! Are you kidding me?
I understand that its a fantasy world but its also not a kids’ cartoon.
I don’t know about you guys but I never wanted to be a hero.
I feel like RPGs initially stemmed from a group of people who were beaten down socially. These games (Starting with DnD and the like) kind of acted as a way for them to escape society’s judgmental eye and become the hero they always felt like they were.
Though I can definitely relate to that demographic, I have never had the desire of being a hero. I always just enjoyed being part of a team. A useful member. A faithful sidekick. A Brother-in-arms.
I think the design flaw in GW2’s story is just that – we’re forced to be a HERO! When heroic deeds really come from the choices we make as opposed to what has been scripted for us. In WvW, I felt like a hero when I saw my guildie down and I lept from the castle’s battlements and revived him just as the enemy zerg got within range.
A side-note: The in-game cinematics take away from what could be good character development. The dialogue is there and the reading is fine, but what we end up seeing is an awkward, lifeless play with a pretty backdrop. Arenanet, I am a videographer/cinematographer. I will fly out there and mocap everything and animate all the cameras myself for free. I’m serious. The content is good, the delivery is not.
My suggestions:
-Make bigger mini-dungeons. Actually have the current dungeon dev team go make their elite impossible dungeons for Hardcore players and promote the Mini-Dungeons guy to a normal Dungeon Dev. Those things are so awesome but waaaay too short.
-Mini-games with leaderboards and trophies. Take that Asura Chess game, bring it to Lion’s Arch and have players play competitively. Same with Polymock and RollerBeetle racing. These minigames are super fun and add to the ENDGAME possibilities :p
-Hard Mode
-Dynamic Dungeons. My guild only has 4 people. We somehow beat CM and we can’t do any other dungeons because there are so few of us. Scale the difficulty down with the number of people. GW1 let you play with up to 8 friends but you could also play solo. Now we HAVE to have at least 5 friends in order to enjoy content together. What am I missing, here?
-A few traditional quest arcs. Remember Villainy of Galrath (Or whatever it was called)? Nothing beat getting a task and then getting to travel with your buddies across the countryside to battle a boss. Sure events are awesome and the Personal Story is fine (Except for the cinematics, but that’s a whole other problem). Just add some quick and easy quests that we can complete with friends on our own time.
-Titles catered towards grind-focused players- Lucky, Unlucky, Drunkard, ETC.
New Skins – No more of this “Better than Best” gear progression.
I’m sure none of this will ever be looked at or, let alone, implemented but a guy can dream :p
To those of you who are happy with ascended weapons – I am happy for you.
Lets flip the coin for a moment and look at my anecdotal experience as a player. I play maybe 4 to 5 hours a week. I love the game and I only recently reached endgame.
With my guild of 4 people, Dungeons are next to impossible without max gear, which none of us can afford. Legendary items are not even close to being obtainable and, at least with the endgame content, the whole “play how you want” philosophy has vanished.
I remember the challenge in GW1 was how to best tackle a challenge with the skills available to you. Since GW2 is less skill-heavy and more engine/environment heavy, I was hoping that GW2’s challenge would lie with how to best tackle a task with in a given environment and with the abilities you have. Instead, based on the endgame content and this new update, it looks like step number 1 to taking on a challenge (Making sure all your gear is max to avoid a handicap) is immediately out of reach for players like me. This isn’t fun. This isn’t innovative. This is telling players like me: “See this endgame content? Not for you!”
I will say that the mini-dungeons are loads of fun and my casual friends and I wish there were full-sized dungeons that we could play with a similar design philosophy. Puzzles, false turns, enemies we can actually kill, Jumping Sequences, Boss fights, chests. So much fun!
“Other players will not refuse to group with you just because you don’t have a specific skin.
They will refuse to group with you if you don’t have a specific level of stats.”
This^
The beauty of GW1 was, yes, there was a cap for gear and weapons but what ultimately defined a player is how they used their skills and the environment to its fullest potential. The meta-game was ever-expanding and ever-changing.
With Guild Wars 2 being so environment-driven, I was hoping that even the hardest of Dungeons could be overcome by cunning and an innovative implementation of the game mechanics. Instead, not having good enough gear will forever keep me, the casual/moderate player behind everyone else. Things like enemy invulnerability and profession-related conditions/bonuses having no effect on enemies (I steal from an enemy in a dungeon and they’re immune to the skill I get from them?!?!). Enemies can only be taken down in certain ways by certain means. There’s no fun in that. Yes, it may be challenging. Yes, it will keep the 35-hours-per-week players busy. But that kind of design also holds the 5-hours-per-week players back from enjoying endgame content.
Hard Mode, Skin-not-stat-focused item grinding, graduated dungeon difficulty, meta-game:
These things gave hardcore players something to play towards while allowing casual players to experience all the content available without an excessive grind or any sort of expertise.
Long post from what may seem like a butthurt player. Fear not. I love GW2 and my complaints only apply to endgame. Arenanet seems to have forgotten that all players who reach endgame aren’t hardcore players. A better-than-best implementation system will only weed out the casual players and retain those hardcore players. Most people play games because they are fun. Some people play games so they can beat them.
The day gear progression becomes so far ahead of me that I can’t play any new content is the day I stop playing. I hope that day never comes and, frankly, I doubt it will. I am just concerned for the future of the game, as any devoted player should be.
Cheers
Adding my name to the long list of people who can’t play the game because this quest is bugged.
I can’t even enter with a party member. Whenever I try to enter the instance, It doesn’t give ANY of my party members the option to join it, I just zone to the mission automatically.
After reaching the end, totally naked and broke, it was heartbreaking to watch as the NPCs stood there smiling at the walls. I never want to play this quest again but, alas, I’ll have to do it with EVERY character aspiring to finish the personal story.