Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to add my feedback and agree that the early personal story content focusing on your race and character creation choices was by far the strongest part of the entire personal story.

As someone else mentioned, part of the problem with the later personal story content feeling much less personal is that all player characters need to be homogenized into the same character, regardless of race, in order to fit the Order story and beyond. So an Asura, for example, really loses a lot of the personality quirks that make the Asura unique.

Additionally, they did a much better job of making you feel like the main character of the story. As a human street rat, for example, if you choose the option where Quinn gets killed, your character is the driving force behind the story. You tell Logan what you’re going to do about it, and he supports you. From the Order and beyond, you just follow what everyone else is telling you to do.

@manwiththemachinegun

I don’t know how you consider half of those examples of the player being the focus of the story. They’re nothing more than a “hello.” A greeting. The other half seem to be words from Trahearne himself, which are entirely irrelevant. The problem is the role you play in the story vs. the role Trahearne plays. Batman praising Robin and showing him respect doesn’t change the fact that it’s still Robin.

manwiththemachinegun.6873:

I can’t help but think there’s a bit of circular thinking going on here. Trahearne sucks because he sucks? Why? Where is he stealing your thunder? Specifically what lines of dialog? What battles? All I’m hearing is generalities and “lol tree jesus”.

You keep bringing up how you don’t see any evidence as to why everyone’s complaining about Trahearne stealing the show, and you keep saying that the player gets more praise and compliments than him, and yet thus far you’ve only cited a single mission. As I said before, in that very same mission, it ends with NPCs talking about how Trahearne is the one true hope Tyria has to stand against Zhaitan against all odds.

In the ruins mission where you have to extract a priory team, I posted a screenshot demonstrating lack of player acknowledgement. When you finish the boss fight of that mission, your character doesn’t get a single line of dialogue. The entire cutscene is the NPCs gushing over how Trahearne saved their lives, and is obviously more than qualified to lead the Pact because he’s such an incredible hero, and how could they have doubted him for a second. No one mentions you at all. You don’t say a word. You’re essentially not even there.

In Light in the Darkness, when you get to take a ride into the Dream, you get to see the future and how important your role is going to be. But wait, that’s not right. Because you’re not even featured in it. All you see is Trahearne rallying the troops and leading the pact. Would it have been difficult to replicate the player character in those scenes? At least have him or her standing around, maybe a /point followed by all the other ghostly NPCs charging? I don’t think that would’ve been too much to ask. After that, the Pale Tree grants Trahearne the legendary sword, Caldabolg. While you, the player, stand there twiddling your thumbs. As someone else said, it’s Trahearne’s “King Arthur” moment. The Pale Tree even says to him, “Your friend will help you.” She addresses him far more than she addresses you, because you’re of lesser importance. You’re reduced to being the hero’s “friend.”

In the Source of Orr, the mission has the biggest setup of any of the missions in the game, including the mission to kill Zhaitan. You even get special part at the end where “Fear Not This Night” starts playing and Trahearne is doing his ritual, all that. It feels like the final mission. It feels like the most important mission. This mission is given far greater weight than the followup, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the mission where it’s Trahearne’s chance to shine. The culmination of his oh-so-important Wyld Hunt that’s way more special than every other sylvari’s because of how intangible it was.

So this brings us to the followup mission. Kill Zhaitan. You, the player, finally get your chance. Having had to deal with standing in Trahearne’s shadow for the past 30 levels, it’s finally time for you to be the hero. Alarm bells were already ringing when the setup was a cursory, “Ok well, go ahead and go kill Zhaitan now.” Where was the big setup that the previous mission had? Also, why do I have to do this with 4 other players? Why am I not even featured in these cutscenes with Destiny’s Edge? Because I didn’t enter the dungeon first? Even the guy who does enter the dungeon first has precious little screen time.

So you beat Zhaitan, trudge back to Fort Trinity, and hey, look at that, NPCs are /cheering for me. That’s more validation than I’ve gotten in the last 30 levels, so it’s a welcome sight. But even then, Trahearne still overshadows the player. You walk into the fort, and one of the first conversations you hear, is a conversation about how Trahearne has saved the day. Trahearne did it. He actually did it. He cleansed Orr! He led us to victory! A toast to Trahearne! If you can stomach it, and you do stick around for them to stop praising him, you get a single line in your honor. “And a cheer for the commander for slaying Zhaitan!” Second to Trahearne again.

These are just some of the examples off the top of my head. I’ve already typed out way more than I intended to, and I could keep going on about Trahearne’s ridiculous shoehorning into each of the Order storylines and how he’s best friends with every mentor, and all the Orders owe him. You say he’s not a Mary Sue, but he is one, in every sense of the word. He has no real character flaws, every character in the game is head over heels for him (including the player character), he just so happens to be a brilliant military commander despite doing nothing but studying Orr for 25 years, and he has an answer for every single obstacle he encounters. You can’t get more Mary Sue than that.

I hope those examples help you better understand where we’re coming from. And I don’t think “Hail, Warmaster! Good to see you!” makes up for it.

manwiththemachinegun.6873:

When you retake Claw Island, I don’t see the besieged armies crying Trahearne! Trahearne! I hear them saying, "It’s the Warmaster! NOW we have a chance!’

Mm, no, I don’t remember that at all. I remember something along the lines of an Asura saying “I calculate a 1 in 500 chance of us being successful at defeating Zhaitan,” to which a nearby Norn responds, “If that one is Trahearne, I’ll take those chances!”

To use your analogy, being FDR instead of Patton isn’t what the issue is, nor do I want to be FDR. The issue is being Patton in FDR: The Biography when it should be a story about Patton.

It’s the Personal Story, starring Trahearne! And introducing, The Player, as Trahearne’s Supportive Friend!

At the end of the day, it is what it is. The personal story isn’t going to change, and we’re stuck with it the way it is. The whole point of all of these unsatisfied players voicing their opinion on how Trahearne and his role in the story ruins the post 50-content for them is in the hopes that ArenaNet doesn’t continue to make this mistake with future personal story content. That they’ll see that maybe they could do a better job of making the player feel like a real hero, rather than the real hero’s yes man sidekick. As an added bonus, hopefully they’ll take Trahearne off center stage and stick him with a desk job at Fort Trinity, or they’ll kill him off, or even concoct some crazy situation where the players gets the joy of putting him in the ground themselves (there IS that theory about the sylvari, the Pale Tree, and a 6th Elder Dragon, you know…)

Personally, I think a good choice would be for there to be an option early on in the story to rescue Trahearne from something vs. rescuing someone else/a town/whatever like they have with Quinn in the street rat story for humans. That way, you and EdwinLi can save him because you like him, and you can go on to hang out with him in your home instance whenever you want, and the rest of us can breathe a sigh of relief and regain some sort of hope of being the main characters of our personal stories again.

EdwinLi.1284:

I won’t be surprised that when we fight Jormag, we will have to Guide the Hero or Heroine who will damage Jormag’s teeth ,the Norn legend foretold, to allow him or her to slay Jormag.

And this is a perfect example of what ArenaNet should NOT do. This should be something that the PLAYER does in the Norn personal story. Hell, even the human, sylvari, charr, or asura stories. But you’re right. Based on what we’ve seen up until now, I won’t be surprised either.

BrunoBRS.5178:

trahearne is one of the best-developed characters in the personal story, he actually undergoes character development and stays around for plenty of story arcs. he’s not as intrusive as people make him sound, you’re still the other half of the reason the pact exists, and you’re almost as in charge of it as him. you still get to boss people around, and whenever someone mentions him, they mention you too.

I’m having a much easier time remembering when the player character is completely ignored than I am remembering them being recognized equally. How about the whole ruins rescue mission where you fight the wraith boss at the end? Not only does every single character in the ensuing cutscene go on and on about how Trahearne saved them and how Trahearne defeated the wraith and how amazing he is, your character has no presence in the cutscene at all. You are a complete nonentity the entire mission, despite being the one who actually defeated the boss.

And even after defeating Zhaitan, the NPC dialogue is borderline insulting. They go on about how Trahearne just saved the world, and then once they finish gushing over it, they throw in a “And the Commander defeated Zhaitan, too!” at the end. Like it’s an afterthought.

I saved this screen from someone else, at the time I didn’t think to save instances of all the times the story disregards you in favor of Trahearne. But it’s a perfect example of the complaints surrounding how Trahearne fits into the player’s story.

PsionicDingo.2065:

This is my feeling on MMORPGs (Not RPGs, specifically MMORPGs) making You, the Player Character, The Hero: It doesn’t work. The very concept is immersion breaking. Being A Hero works, but not The Hero.

I seriously have never understood this issue. What’s so hard about ignoring the fact that other players are playing through the same story? How is it any different than two people playing the same singleplayer RPG? I don’t see how my personal story is cheapened in any way because someone else played through their personal story. I don’t look at other players and think, “Oh no, they’re all supposedly buddies with Destiny’s Edge too. I guess I’m not special.” I don’t see other players as factoring into the story, and I don’t think you’re supposed to.

EdwinLi.1284:

Currently now people are using only Trahearne as their reason for the Personal story being bad but it not Trahearne but how Anet handled introducing him without all races to know him better before Claw Island and how they focused too much on telling the Main Story rather then the Personal Story

Clearly you’re far more forgiving of the whole Trahearne issue than a lot of the other people voicing their opinions, and that’s fine, but you probably shouldn’t speak for why other people take issue with him and the personal story. His introduction is a problem on its own to be sure, but that doesn’t address the more offensive issue of taking the player out of the main character role. And there’s no differentiation between a “main story” and a “personal story.” They’re one and the same.

I’m sure they would have found a way to make him leap off the airship and deliver the killing blow to Zhaitan with Caldabolg while Destiny’s Edge cheers him on had he come along.

You should try to keep up to date on the dungeons, as the final mission in the personal story is actually a dungeon. That mission continues the previous dungeon stories, so if you haven’t done them, you’re going to be running around with a whole bunch of NPCs the game assumes you’ve met before.

That being said, these particular NPCs (Destiny’s Edge) still play a pretty small role. Way smaller of a role than I was expecting. So it may not even be all that jarring.

Well I think a big reason that Zhaitan feels marginalized is because the game focuses too much on Trahearne and his cleansing of Orr. They make that the Pact’s number one priority. So it’s hard to make Zhaitan feel like this huge threat when the Pact isn’t bothering with him until the very last mission. Honestly, I don’t know why cleansing Orr and killing Zhaitan had to be separate. Why not have it be so that killing Zhaitan would lead to the cleansing of Orr? Maybe there’s some lore reason that they didn’t go into, or maybe they did and I missed it, but it just didn’t seem necessary to separate the two aside from giving them as much time to put Trahearne in the spotlight as possible.

As far as the whole “Zhaitan’s power feeling worlds away” thing to most of the home cities, I still think that was the point. Orr isn’t anywhere near Divinity’s Reach, the Black Citadel, or Hoelbrak, and it’s only somewhat close to the The Grove and Rata Sum. And since Zhaitan is sitting tight in Orr and raising an army, we’re really just not going to see much of him until we go to Orr. I think GW2, at least at this point, is meant to take place during the calm before the storm. At the start, Zhaitan isn’t attacking yet. He’s still preparing. And we have no idea what the other dragons are up to yet, either. Claw Island is really the first time Zhaitan tries to go on any sort of major offensive. I got the impression that the Pact’s whole attack on Zhaitan was more of a preemptive strike to take him out BEFORE he could really do serious damage to Tyria. I do think it could be very cool in future content to have more of a major war, something like War in Kryta as you mentioned, but I don’t really think that was the intention for the showdown with the first Elder Dragon. We’ve still got plenty more to go.

EdwinLi, that certainly would’ve helped combat how jarring his entrance into the story is, particularly for non-Sylvari, but it’s just a small part of the problem. And I’m not sure how you can say this isn’t a common hero story, as it’s as common as you can get. There’s nothing about the personal story that really sets apart from your standard fantasy tale (and that’s okay). The whole issue with Trahearne isn’t so much a problem with the story itself, it’s a problem with how the story treats Trahearne (especially in comparison to you, the supposed main character).

“The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.”
That’s a direct quote from Ree Soesbee. The player does not feel important when the game repeatedly tells them that Trahearne is the famous, glorious hero who saved Tyria.

Effusion.4831:

Spot on. It’s because, as middle school writing teachers love saying, they’re telling instead of showing.
He doesn’t do anything amazing, you’re just told that he’s amazing and that he’s done all these non-specific amazing things.
He doesn’t struggle with becoming the leader of the pact, he just tells you that he’s struggling internally until he tells you that he’s over it.
He doesn’t have a personality, you’re just told that he has one and that you’re instant-super-best-friends.

Telling has its uses, but to make your audience feel anything you need to show them.

Totally. And one of the more annoying things about it is just how ridiculous half the stuff they tell you about him is:

-Sayeh (if I remember her name correctly) and how she’s apparently made this unbreakable oath to him because he’s so awesome.
-“Oh, yeah, I helped kill the corrupted previous Master of Whispers, so the whole Order of Whispers basically owes me big time. No big deal.”
-Tybalt and him go way back and are best friends forever.
-Sieren and him go way back and are best friends forever.

I haven’t done the Vigil yet, but I’d put money on something similar going on in that route. All this, compounding with the NPC dialogue and adoration for him, like “If Trahearne is that 1 in 662 chance, I’ll take them odds!” at Claw Island, the “Wow, Trahearne defeated that powerful phantom! What a man!” in the excavation site, and “Three cheers for Trahearne for saving Tyria! Oh and the commander killed Zhaitan, don’t forget that!” after the final mission, just left me shaking my head in disbelief, and gave me every reason to be annoyed by this character’s very presence in the story.

“Don’t worry, I know a ritual for this.” Of course you do, Trahearne. Of course you do.

Very nice writeup, I agree with a lot of your points. Particularly that I would’ve liked to have seen more lore offered up to us throughout the personal story, that there needed to be less characters and more time spent with them so that we had time to grow attached. Related to that, the story arcs were very segmented, and didn’t flow together particularly well. Also, the disconnect between the dungeon stories and the personal story definitely didn’t do either story any favors. Destiny’s Edge didn’t even come close to getting adequate characterization or development. For example, I read the books, so I know what Eir’s character is like. But if I hadn’t, my only exposure to her was basically in Ascalon Catacombs and Honor of the Waves. The two situations she’s presented in lead me to believe she’s foolish and/or stupid (Ascalon Catacombs), and a big baby (Honor of the Waves). And it’s a shame, because Destiny’s Edge was supposed to be an interesting part of the story. Another sideffect to the disconnect between the dungeon stories and the personal story, is that it ended up with the Zhaitan fight being an incredible letdown. I get the impression this is due to the fact that two different teams were working on the dungeon stories and the personal stories. The mission before the one where you actually fight Zhaitan has a ton of buildup, and is made out to be the final mission. Probably because this was the last mission the personal story team got to make, so they wanted to go all out. The dungeon stories didn’t tend to have any really involved story segments to them because they have to be played with other people. So what you end up with is a mission that feels like the final mission, and then a mission (the actual final mission) that just feels like another dungeon (albeit a very cool one).

I do disagree with some of your points, though. In particular, that Zhaitan’s influence needed to be felt in all of the starting areas and threaten each race’s home cities. And keep in mind, his influence IS felt in the Sylvari areas (Caledon Forest has plenty of Risen) due to their proximity with Orr. It wouldn’t make sense for the Risen to be anywhere else. Also keep in mind that, at least at the time of this story, none of the race’s nations are dealing with Zhaitan. It’s the Pact, made up of the Orders, which are entirely independent. The nations are tangled up in their own troubles with the Flame Legion, Nightmare Court, Centaur wars, etc. I feel it’s much better to ease players into the conflict rather than shove Zhaitan and the Risen down their throats from the very beginning. I actually felt that the Claw Island mission, as well as the defense of Fort Trinity, did a very good job of making the player feel that Zhaitan is truly a dangerous enemy. There’s no need to force this into the player cities, particularly when these cities need to remain somewhat constant as expansions and future content come out. Eventually the story of the game needs to go on under the assumption that Zhaitan has been killed.

Another couple minor points I disagree with, and these are much more just personal taste, is that I felt Tybalt and Trahearne were both poorly handled. I felt Tybalt was actually a good character (although personally, I felt the “apples” thing was a bit overdone and bordered on annoying. A joke that was only barely amusing the first time, had overstayed its welcome the second time, and then stuck around for a third and fourth), but I thought it was a very poor decision to make him the mentor for Order of Whispers. We were told to join OoW if we wanted a James Bond experience. What we got was more akin to Get Smart. For whatever reason, our “mentor” character had less experience than the player, and was nothing more than comic relief. Comic relief characters are fine, but it really cheapened the entire feel of that Order.

I’m not going to go into a rant on Trahearne, as I’ve made my opinions on his poorly shoehorned role in the story, and the game’s complete disregard for the player character after his introduction post-Claw Island in a couple other threads. He’s one of the single biggest problems with the personal story post-Claw Island and essentially kills any enjoyment I can have with it on subsequent playthroughs, and I’ll leave it at that.

I’m not entirely sure on where to post this, but this seems to be as good a place as any. I just wanted to mention that there’s a particular dynamic event that you can encounter in Kessex Hills, where you escort a guy around the ruins of a town that’s mostly been flooded and overrun with krait. The first time I did this event, I didn’t really know what he was doing there. By the end of the DE, you come to find that he went there to visit the ghosts of his wife and daughter. He exchanges words with them briefly, interacting with them as if they’re still alive and he’s still living a normal life with them.

This single dynamic event drew a stronger emotional reaction from me than the entirety of the personal story. It was incredibly touching, and it really made me feel for that character. It made me proud to have protected him from the krait, and I actually felt like my character made a difference in this NPC’s life.

I haven’t read this whole thread, but I wanted to give an example of what I found to be really GOOD dialogue and VA. I’d love to see more stuff like this. I also recall hearing a story that didn’t make it into the game about a skritt learning about the ways of the Kodan, and it being the “GW2 version of ‘Flowers for Algernon’.” It sounded great, and the writers at ArenaNet are obviously capable of great stuff.

Unfortunately, the personal story felt like it missed more than it hit. Based on some of the dev posts I’ve seen, it doesn’t sound like they’re entirely satisfied with how it turned out either, which is hopefully a good sign for the future.

Yes, unfortunately the rest of the story continues that trend. You’re at the point now where your character is essentially irrelevant and Trahearne takes over as the main character of the story. Even when you get to take on Zhaitan at the end, the one point since before Claw Island where it feels like you’re supposed to be the main character, it feels like an afterthought. Like an “Oh, you’re still here? Well you might as well kill the Elder Dragon, I guess.”

Obviously it’s still worth doing for the rewards, but hopefully if you go into it knowing what to expect, it won’t be so disappointing. You’re definitely not alone in your thoughts about how Trahearne was handled, and I hope ArenaNet learns from it for future personal story content. Would’ve thought they’d have learned from the whole Kormir thing, but third time’s a charm, right?

riku.2091:

Well, a lot of this probably makes more sense to Sylvari players. He’s in our story pretty much from the start, and he’s a very nice, helpful guy. I would very much dislike it if they killed him off just because a few loud players didn’t like the limelight being taken off of them. :P We’re the heroes, yes, but to keep a cohesive story, you need to give certain NPC characters big accomplishments. How this game differs from WoW is that, even if it’s just a small mention here or there, you are mentioned as being a part of the story. When I played WoW, the lore almost completely ignores the existence of the players (again, to my memory). And isn’t this how credit is given in the real world where battles are concerned, anyways?

And, uhm…yeah. Pale Tree giving him the sword? Trust me. Any sylvari player will tell you: better him than you.

I’m not saying NPCs can’t have their own accomplishments, but when their accomplishments outshine your own (or they get credit for your accomplishments), it makes the story less enjoyable. I have heard that his appearance in Claw Island is a bit less jarring for Sylvari players, but it still doesn’t make it any less forced. The fact that all three Orders just so happen to owe him, or have great respect for him, is what I’m referring to when I say it’s forced. It isn’t particularly believable that a 25 year old sylvari scholar has such deep connections with every major player in the story, and it really just serves as a weak thread to tie each Order’s story into the post-Claw Island Trahearne-a-thon.

I mean, surely you can understand my frustration with taking down the boss in the ruins while Trahearne stands motionless the entire fight, only to be greeted with a cutscene after in which every character in the mission does nothing but exclaim some variation of “Wow, Trahearne did it! Incredible!” Meanwhile, your character doesn’t even appear in the cutscene.

I really have no interest in playing the Robin to some NPC’s Batman. Especially an NPC as uninteresting and lacking in personality as Trahearne. Frankly, I’m pretty surprised ArenaNet handled it like this after the backlash over Kormir.

Just want to throw my feedback in, and I hope ArenaNet can use it for future personal stories in expansions or whatnot.

The personal story takes a drastic turn for the worse after Claw Island, almost entirely due to Trahearne. I’d like to echo the sentiments that many people have made already, but Trahearne becomes the main character. It’s no longer “my story.” It’s Trahearne’s. He gets credit for the player’s accomplishments, the NPCs voice their respect for him nonstop while you’re lucky if your character even gets a mention, and the closest thing to genuine recognition you get at the end is an “oh yeah, and the commander killed Zhaitan” after they finish gushing over how Trahearne just saved Tyria. His injection into the story at Claw Island was incredibly forced, and the game tries to make you like him by having all the other characters like him. But you’re given no actual reason to take a personal liking to him.

And that conversation with the Pale Tree? Her granting him a legendary sword while you stand there twiddling your thumbs? It doesn’t make you feel very much like a hero. I enjoyed the beginning of the personal story, because my character actually felt like the center of it. As soon as Trahearne shows up though, that all goes out the window.

I hope ArenaNet gets a lot of feedback regarding the handling of the post-Claw Island story. From what I can tell, it seems like the majority of players are of a similar opinion (or at least the most vocal ones). I’m looking forward to future personal story content, but what do you say we start it with Trahearne getting killed off, huh? I’d kinda like to be the hero again.