Guild Wars 2

god, at least he does something in the story – unlike thackeray. could be worse. could be logan thackeray. ¬_¬

I neither like nor hate Trahearne.
He is a character that gets thrust into a position that he seemed to not want to be in. I personally rationalize him being so flat and emotionless sometimes because he’s coping with being in a position that’s pretty far outside his comfort zone. -shrugs-

I also realize from a game point of view that it’s better to let an NPC like Trahearne (or anyone else besides the player character) become the supreme commander of the Pact. Otherwise, /everyone/ in the game that goes through the Personal Story becomes the single Supreme Commander… Which wouldn’t make any sense at all…
(It’s a lot like hearing someone boasting about how they killed Zhaitan in character. My character would look at them funny… But I digress…)
Back on track, I never feel like Trahearne stole any thunder from me. His Wylde Hunt was the cleansing of Orr. /Not/ the destruction of the Elder Dragon… That task was for us (the player characters) and if we failed at that, then his mission would fail…

I guess in the end, I wasn’t playing the entire invasion of Orr campaign looking for glory and to be a hero. My character had a job to do, and she did it. The restoration of Orr can be done by Trahearne and he can go back to his comfort zone of being a scholar while I go after the next challenge that arises…

Anyway, that’s my 2 copper…

Tybalt :’( why things have to be that way?

What I don’t like about Trahearne is not the character himself, but the poor execution.

In writing, we have a saying: “Show, don’t tell”. If a character is a great painter, don’t write “he was a good painter”, you show other characters reacting to it, you show the awards they won, you show them covered up to their elbows in paint with little flecks of it stuck in their hair. You show them painting, you don’t tell the readers that they paint.

Trahearne is the opposite. We are told he did great things, but never shown him doing great things. We are told he spent years in Orr, sneaking around trying desperately not to get killed to smuggle out vital knowledge to the other races so they could confront Zhaitan… but when we return he gives it all the emotional importance of going to the grocery store. Where is the psychological damage? Where are the physical scars?

We are told that he “can’t do this without you”… but at every turn, every time we choose path A, we find out that path B happened just fine without us. This lack of agency on the part of the player, the lack of repercussions for our choices, shows that things CAN get done without us (and shows trump tells in story writing).

I think a lot of the Trahearne hate also stems from the comparison between him and the mentors. The mentors were written amazingly, all three were good examples of “show, don’t tell”. We are shown Sierans’ love of life and desire to experience as much as possible before she dies. This makes her final lines so much more impactfull. We are shown Forgal’s sense of honour and duty, his desire for a meaningful death and fear of growing too old and useless to do so. Lastly, and likely the easiest and most direct comparison happens for Whispers players between Tybalt and Trahearne.

Both Tybalt and Trahearne have massive self-esteem issues, they both feel they will never be able to live up to the tasks they have been given in life. However, Tybalt shows this by shirking taking on new responsibilities in the order, we are shown other character’s surprise when he takes on a new partner and starts to actually advance within the order. This makes his death a great character development as he is finally taking the ultimate responsibility to save the lives of others. Trahearne on the other paw… we are just told (again and again and again) how he “isn’t a soldier” and “I’m no general”… but that telling never amounts to anything, it just kinda dies.

Oddly enough, part of what makes the death of the mentors such an impact is that we KNOW they had amazing stories to tell, we know they would have went places and done/seen interesting things, thus their deaths were really cutting not just their lives, but their stories short. It hurt because the players felt they only got to the middle of an amazing book before it was torn from our hands. Trahearne however had half the game and did little with that time. We didn’t get a great story out of him (mostly due to poor characterization) so there was no impact when it ended.

TL;DR: Working with Trahearne is a shock change from the amazing writing of the mentors, which I think is where a lot of the hate comes from.

In terms of pure dumb hack-n-slash game mechanics, yes, we’re “indispensable”. In terms of actual storytelling and characterization, though, we’re utterly invisible.

The story progresses mainly through two things: cutscenes and scripted conversations. While the personal story has the character as an active, speaking participant in most the cutscenes, the living story does not. Ever. As a result, I just feel completely disconnected from what’s going on. My character is a nameless, mute extra who never gets to state an opinion, make choices, talk to anyone, get to know anyone, connect to anyone or display a shred of personality.

It’s not about wanting to the The Super Mega Awesome Chosen One Who Alone Can Save The World — far from it, I’m sick of that sort of ridiculous ego-humping we often or even usually get in games. I don’t mind and in fact enjoy being part of something greater, taking orders, reporting to mentors and elders and commanders. But I want to be involved and acknowledged as such. If the writing had been better overall, becoming Trahearne’s friend, advisor and second-in-command until he completes his Wyld Hunt could have been a very enjoyable part of the game. In the living story, though, the disconnect between being the one who has to do all the work but is otherwise completely ignored is just huge.

This is getting quite off-topic, so sorry for the derail. The botched storytelling in this game is simply a massive source of disappointment and frustration for me on so many levels.

Chadramar.8156:

Depends on what sort of games you’re looking at. I’m talking about ones that actually have a story and characters, i.e. RPGs or adventures. When voice-acting was on the rise, the protagonists I played were generally “silent” in the sense of not being voiced, but they certainly weren’t “silent” in the sense of not interacting with anyone or playing no role in the story.

In the “living story” our character does not exist because we never participate or are acknowledged in any of the interactions that advance and explain the plot, even though we do all the dirty work as usual.

I was personally invited to this recent shindig by the Queen of Kryta. I just finished participating a few mins ago.

The asura emissary Vorpp is currently depending on my efforts to get intel on Scarlet’s attacks and invasions.

On a personal level, the story doesn’t progress without me. I get this whole process moving and I’m indispensable to that end. I’m the one who ends up “getting it done.”

You’re free to feel you’re not heroic or helpful or not mentioned enough I suppose, but I don’t feel that way at all.

But then, I’ve never been one to demand a pat on the back.

Maybe you want more personal references or more “I’m the big hero, praise me!” moments? I dunno.

I mean could you elaborate on what you mean when you say that we don’t exist or participate in the Living Story?

CETheLucid.3964:

The heroes in most games tend to be mute, silent characters.

Depends on what sort of games you’re looking at. I’m talking about ones that actually have a story and characters, i.e. RPGs or adventures. When voice-acting was on the rise, the protagonists I played were generally “silent” in the sense of not being voiced, but they certainly weren’t “silent” in the sense of not interacting with anyone or playing no role in the story.

In the “living story” our character does not exist because we never participate or are acknowledged in any of the interactions that advance and explain the plot, even though we do all the dirty work as usual. It’d say it’s like playing a trained animal who only exists to have orders barked at it — but Frostbite is a trained animal, and he gets to be more of a character than we are.

As badly constructed as the personal story is, at least our characters get to participate in those moments there, even though what they say is 100% controlled by the game and always the same for everyone. The difference between our level of involvement is huge.

The heroes in most games tend to be mute, silent characters.

Ours by comparison interacts with the world a bit, but in general most games tell their story from the NPCs.

To people that have this complaint, do you hate Zelda games because Link hardly says two words and confirms most things with a nod of his head?

Never played a Zelda game I didn’t like, and I can really appreciate my character isn’t a mute and exceedingly valuable to the story that unfolds.

Trahearne needed me. Trahearne didn’t steal my glory. I was never in it for glory.

It began as a duty for my people that branched out into a broader unite and save the world deal.

To that end the fact that my character, a human, has charr raising war banners in my honor tells in no small part that I’m a pretty popular guy for it all.

I rather like him, though the characterization in this game is shallow and rushed enough to make it hard to truly like any character — Trahearne is no worse in that regard than anyone else. His voice is pleasant, and I like his more quiet, thoughtful demeanor because I’m an introvert and not fond of the tendency to see those traits as bad or boring while loud or “quirky” characters are seen in a more positive light.

What I don’t like is how he’s used later on, as well as the fact that the game’s a bit too in-our-faces about how the NPCs are all in awe of him once he’s shown off a bit in combat (which honestly has nothing to do with coordinating a huge war effort, so I really didn’t see the point in that mission). Again, shallow and rushed characterization is to blame here. Not to mention the overall problems with the approach to storytelling that I’ve gone on and on about in other threads — basically, our own character is never allowed to BE a character and thus cannot truly carry the story, in no small part due to budget issues with voice acting. This means that even if Trahearne never showed his face again, there would always be other NPCs taking the spotlight. Witness Kiel in the past living story chapters, or the living story in general: our own characters are completely sidelined, mute and meaningless in general because Anet can’t afford to pay 10 different voice actors for the same role.

Trahearne is really not the problem. I don’t get why people don’t think for a moment and question the underlying problem with the writing, instead of just jumping on the hate bandwagon. Want to blame someone for “stealing” the protagonist role? Blame whoever decided that the story aspect of this game would not get enough funds to be any good.

I really hope they won’t kill him off — or worse, corrupt him first and then have us kill him — just to appease the haters.

Ilike Trahearne.

Also, sylvari don’t see necromancy as dark or evil, it’s just another kind of magic, and they don’t get hung up on corpses. They don’t have the cultural aversion to death that we do.

Literally the only things I dislike about Trahearne are the following:

1) That he gets Summon Flesh Golem*s* when the rest of us Necromancers have to make do with Summon Flesh Golem.

and

2) That he kinda loses interest in the whole “save Tyria” thing after he completes his Wild Hunt.

I actually really like that the PC doesn’t become the leader of the Pact because realistically that would require a switch to a strategy game. It’s kinda a nice bonus for Sylvari characters that they get someone from early on in their story to play such a role in it the whole way down. If you’re a commoner Human, Petra might as well not exist after around level 25.

I never understood why so many people dislike Trahearne. I thought he was a great character. He’s a flawed being.

He has fears, ambitions, hopes, dreams. He’s very relatable, very human, be it he’s a Sylvari. The Mary Sue thing doesn’t stick. He’s not a perfect in every way character.

The overarching thing I get from most people is that he steals your thunder, but he really doesn’t. The campaign against Zhaitan wouldn’t have been successful without the PC.

And yes, he get’s a really cool sword. It’s his. You get like, a million billion cool swords. Trahearne can have one.

Egon Vidar.9125:

Let me say, first, that my main is Sylvari, and I have three Sylvari alts aside from him. I enjoy the race quite a lot, even if I’m really not fond of many of the Sylvari npcs I encounter.

That’s actually my main problem with playing a Sylvari as my main. With a scant few exceptions, roughly every Sylvari NPC you meet is a complete moron. I get that the ditzy valley-girl personae is “hillarious”, but do we have to repeat the same joke with every single NPC? Hrmph.

I might not like Trahearne, but at least he’s not also an idiot.

Trahearne is my favorite character. I think playing a sylvari first helped me warm up to him, though. Working with him from 10-20 and again to take down Mazdak gave me the opportunity to bond with him before he showed up at Claw Island. There are a few sylvari-exclusive moments that make him seem a bit more “real” too, like his sibling banter with Caithe, his clueless reaction to an npc fangirling all over him, a Nightmare Courtier pretty much calling him a nerd when he tries to defend a friend, etc. Unfortunately the other races only get a brief introduction to him right before the story takes a more depressing turn, and from that point on he mostly stresses out about his Wyld Hunt and duties as Pact Marshal. So even though I think a lot of the common complaints about Trahearne are silly, I can understand why non-sylvari players feel like he shows up out of nowhere, and why some find him boring/lacking in development.

I found him boring until it was hinted (or was it just in my mind?) that he has a girlfriend. Then he became much more interesting. Of course being Sylvari he could be batting for both teams. I always giggle when he says certain things in cutscenes to my male toons. I wish anet would explore his romantic side more.

WyldKat.4712:

Look at it this way, she wasn’t the main character, but she was awesome. So we’re kinda like Ivanova from B5. We are the right hand of awesome.

Susan Ivanova: Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander. Daughter of Andre and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance and the boot that is going to kick your sorry [donkey] all the way back to Earth, sweetheart! I am death incarnate, and the last living thing that you will ever see. God sent me.

One of the best episdoes of B5

Look at it this way, she wasn’t the main character, but she was awesome. So we’re kinda like Ivanova from B5. We are the right hand of awesome.

Susan Ivanova: Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander. Daughter of Andre and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance and the boot that is going to kick your sorry [donkey] all the way back to Earth, sweetheart! I am death incarnate, and the last living thing that you will ever see. God sent me.

No hate. Like. He’s on my list of favourite characters. Anet better not listen to everyone who wants him dead or I’ll get sad.

There are spoilers here. You have been warned.

From a Sylvari’s standpoint, do you hate him? Everyone else seems to abhor him with a fruity passion. (…bad pun. Sorry, couldn’t resist)

He shows up pretty early in the personal storyline, probably starting at Part 2 (whatever Ventari teaching you chose for your character). I don’t remember if it’s earlier than that, but probably not. After that, he keeps popping up until you pick which Order to follow – even helping with Mazdak’s defeat.

He keeps coming out of hiding as conditions get worse – starting with Claw Island, and eventually being persuaded to unite the three Orders. Heck, at first, he didn’t even want to do it, didn’t he?

A lot of people complain he came in and stole the spotlight, but it just doesn’t feel that way in the Sylvari story. It seems more like an NPC friend that ends up fighting alongside you to the very end. If his Wyld Hunt didn’t limit him to purifying Orr, he’d probably join you to fight Zhaitan as well.

There’s only two things I hate about him: how he keeps rushing into battle with a suicidal manner, and how he seems to skip important details in the Missions for the Pact…

Yes, let’s use an enchanted mirror to lure out the Eye of Zhaitan. You forgot to mention this mirror can also teleport us into the middle of Orr, amid the army of undead.

…

tl;dr version: Hate, or no hate?

I’m with OP. I really like Trahearne. If you pay attention to the dialogues both cutscenes and the the optional dialogue boxes in between you can see how he turns from a quiet solitary scholar who is practically terrified of his Wyld Hunt to someone who was given faith and confidence in himself by you, the Sylvari OC. He grew up with you and that’s what I like about him.
His voice actor could have said some parts a bit more convincingly but otherwise his words was very suited to his overall character.

I have since completed the storyline again on my Norn and I can see where people are coming from when they say “He just pops out of no-where and suddenly he’s doing a Kormir/taking over/better then me etc.” If you started on a race other then Sylvari his connection to Orr and Caladbolg doesn’t really make itself apparent until further on when you’re helping him complete the Source of Orr quest chain.
And yeah, if Anet kills him because of the whiners I’ll be extremely sad. We need more Trahearne love around here!

I like Trahearne. He’s very him. He just took a roundabout way of getting to his Wyld Hunt. Ok, our Story just about had to drag him kicking and screaming into finishing his Wyld Hunt.

We were the driving force behind that. Yep. That and a very large undead monster dragon beastie who wanted to kill everybody. Very driving. Very behind me in that running screaming way.

It ended well.

Bone dragon staff… Yes, take my money.

Glowing blue eyes.

I need these because I want to run around Dry Top in my Fremen/Dune outfit.

Gryphon.2875:

GW1 Scar and Tatoo armor as either Outfits or Armor Skins

Also:

Yes please.

My wishlist:

Endless Alpha Siege Golem Tonic
Endless Omega Siege Golem Tonic
Tattoo skins
Glowing white eyes skin
Lord Farens underwear skin
Kasmeers bikini skin
Angelic Wings back skin
Demonic Wings back skin
Dyeable Weapons (GW1 could do it – so should GW2!)
Ability to wear individual ‘outfit’ pieces so we can mix-n-match skins to create a truly unique look (I for one want to wear the starter guardian shoulders with the top of the raiment of the lich outfit, with radiant gloves, draconic legs and heritage boots, but I am limited to just wearing the ENTIRE lich outfit, or the entire outfit minus the helmet >_< I want to mix-n-match!!!)
Race Change item
Legendary/Special effects dyes (glow/sparkle/metallic/transparent etc.)
Mini Me (creates an identical miniature of your character)
More GW1 weapon and armor skins
Bring back the Dragon Bone Staff skin
Branded armor skin (the armor those branded human and branded charr wear)
Guild Capes (got to represent!)
Armor skins of the 6 gods (especially the 3-faced helmet that the avatar of lyssa wears)
Abaddon/margonite themed armor (would LOVE a helmet that has those 6 glowing purple eyes that Abaddon has. OMG I would literally die from excitement)
Replace the current tormented shield skin (which is really small and insignificant) with the GW1 version – it looked SOOOOO much better

a finisher with a skritt
the skritt searches for your wallet and runs away.
#necrophilia

… If Outfits would unlock skins of eatch armor piece… omnomnomnom :o
Hey Gaile Gray, get your Fuzzy Frog Hat naow!

ErikLeifsen makes very valid points. I sincerely hope ANet makes the puppy available as either a gift this Wintersday or buyable next Halloween.

Sadly, I don’t think most players will have the patience to wait for next Halloween.

That maize loophole isn’t going to cut it.

Zaxares.5419:

Malediktus.9250:

They already ruined achievements with black lion collections

? Can you elaborate?

I still feel that if Gwynefyrdd were tradable, it would solve so many of these complaints. We have the ability to farm the ToT bags all year round thanks to the Maize Balm, so with a guaranteed supply, and the ability to trade the mini, players could at least have the knowledge that they CAN eventually get the mini, even though the price might be atrocious. They have a tangible goal to work towards, rather than just gambling everything away and hoping against hope.

If it were tradeable this thread would not exist. That’s the entire problem. Account bound items should be from things you can work for yourself like ascended/legendary gear. Making Gwyn bound would be as stupid as making pre’s account bound. That’s the bottom line. If they only wanted to redistribute wealth having her tradeable would have had the same effect. 400g on a mini via the tradepost would still have put a literal boatload of gold into the hands of the lucky few and some of us idiots would still have been buying bags trying to get her to drop.
I just hate that I busted my kitten for 2 weeks working 20x harder than 99% of the population and have jack kitten to show for it. Yay now I’m broke and I missed all the gem store skins and minis because my gold was squandered on something that has a nearly 100% failure rate.
FYI: From an ANet employee – the real profit from the gem store doesn’t come from gem to gold conversions, but actual gems spent, so they seriously boned themselves with this. The money they make on gems comes from people actually wanting stuff bought with gems, but they effectively killed the entire supply of gold that keeps gem-to-gold transactions going. They nerfed their own gem store sales by making us waste gold on bags that end up making people ragequit the game for extended periods of time. I adore living story and even I’m not sure if I’m going to play the new content this week just because I’m so mad.

Welp, I played every moment I could spare in Lab, and bought countless stacks of ToT bags. I am having to be done with halloween event since I must sleep soon and then by the time I am able to play tomorrow Event will be gone. in that time I got 1 ZuZu, Some Pillows and 1 Endless Halloween Tonic. No Puppy, and no other unique reward. I am sad but mostly because I tried so kitten

the plus side every one of my alts now has 100 slots of inventory space and once I stopped buying more bags like the first week I was able to outfit my newest alt with all the Corrupted Weapons, and a nice set of gear from the money I made. Not an entire loss, but I really would have loved Gwyn. =(

Can we perhaps expect something on this in the update today or will it continue to remain untouched in the hopes of being forgotten? Which it won’t by any self-respecting player who sees past the MMO in the acronym and notices the RPG as well?

At least do something about the duplicate Temple of the Forgotten God in the journal, I mean by the Alchemy, that is so embarassing.