While you’re at it, make the system remember which skills I have set to auto-attack. I’m tired of turning on my flamethrower’s auto-attack, only to have it flip back off every time I switch kits.
It only “looks awkward” if your only familiarity with weapons and fighting styles is from exposure to video games. IRL, dual wielding is an extremely awkward and almost never used fighting style. And when it is used, the offhand weapon is almost always held in reserve for defense, and/or to take your opponent by surprise when they lower their guard.
Which fits perfectly with the current animation style.
The OP’s ranting diatribe aside, this is actually a real problem.
Last night, I was doing the quest to rescue the researchers close to Fort Trinity (sorry, can’t remember the quest name), and on nearly every single encounter, the second I threw an AOE, every single mob would turn from their current target and make a beeline for me.
A single trap, a single bouncing axe… doesn’t matter. Every mob in the group rushes me, and I end up having to circle-strafe for the next 5 minutes, trying to whittle them down. I feel like I’m in a freaking episode of The Benny Hill Show.
It’s not broken. Main hand weapon swings/fires when you use main hand skills, and offhand weapon swings/fires when you use offhand skills. Working as intended.
After that flamebait of an opening post, do you really expect people to just agree with you, and pat you on the back for “finally saying what everybody is thinking”?
Seriously, it read like you were pounding on the keyboard in a fit of rage. You’re not going to win any friends or supporters by being insulting.
I just did this quest last night and had no problem on my Ranger. Letting the NPCs tank worked fine, while I burned the mobs down with AOE damage. I had to rez a couple of them, but that was about it. Then on the last fight, I popped my healing spirit elite skill to make sure that nobody died, and it was just a matter of picking the mobs down one-by-one.
I think the problem is that you don’t really have attunement-swapping down yet. Elementalists do the best burst damage in the game, and they do it by swapping between attunements, one right after the other, so they can spam their long-cooldown spells. If you manage to get that down, I’m willing to bet that you’ll tear right through the mission without any problems.
Same problem, here.
The problem is with the Shortbow, specifically. Condition builds rely on the bleeds it stacks, but getting into flanking position is a royal pain in thekitten And it’s really not any stronger than Power/Prec/CritDmg builds.
I don’t mind having to kite every once in a while. What I do mind is when every single pull devolves into circle-strafing and watching my bleeds cap out at 2-3 stacks because I can’t get a flanking shot off to save my life.
This is especially frustrating in the personal story, when every single one of the half-dozen mobs in the pull decide they’re going to attack the PC, instead of spreading around the several NPCs that are twiddling their thumbs within two inches of me.
I use Axe/Torch every time I get multiple mobs to kill at once, but I shouldn’t have my shortbow made nearly worthless almost every single pull.
What needs to happen is for weapons to be given an experience bar.
Think of it like Final Fantasy 9. In that game, you wear a piece of gear, and you gain points to unlock that gear’s related skills. Similarly, in GW2 they could have the players wield a weapon, and set experience points toward “unlocking” each skill on that weapon. Once the experience bar is filled, the skill is completely unlocked, and can be set for use with any weapon.
The experience can be shaved off the players’ character EXP bar, or it could be a different type of experience points altogether.
It sounds like an awsome idea. But, they would need to redo animations to make every skill match every weapon. Or come up with a package that detects whether said weapon has said skills unlocked for use or not and determine which animation set to apply to it. I don`t see that ever happening. Would probably lead to more problems then it would be worth.
Shrugs I didn’t say it wouldn’t require work. I’m a player, not a developer. I give my suggestions that I would like to see happen. It’s up to the developers to decide if they’re feasible or not.
What needs to happen is for weapons to be given an experience bar.
Think of it like Final Fantasy 9. In that game, you wear a piece of gear, and you gain points to unlock that gear’s related skills. Similarly, in GW2 they could have the players wield a weapon, and set experience points toward “unlocking” each skill on that weapon. Once the experience bar is filled, the skill is completely unlocked, and can be set for use with any weapon.
The experience can be shaved off the players’ character EXP bar, or it could be a different type of experience points altogether.
I wouldn’t have a problem with it, if there were predictable aggro patterns. As it stands, I don’t have any way to guarantee I get my flanking advantage, because I don’t know how to shake enemies off of me when they decide to charge me. I can dodge and circle strafe and cripple them all day, but it doesn’t take any amount of time for them to face my character and nullify my flanking ability.
It’s especially frustrating lately, because there are quite a number of Risen that just sort of erratically jump around the area. It’s hard to keep them in front of me, much less get in flanking position.
As I’ve gotten higher on my ranger, I’ve noticed that I’ve had a harder and harder time getting flanking positions in pve. My pet just doesn’t pull attention like he used to, and I constantly get mobs right in my face.
Especially during personal story missions.
I’m finding it more difficult to stack my bleeds from my shortbow because of this.
Is anybody else having this issue?
I very much doubt you won’t come across a merchant before the tools run out. I keep a spare pick, axe and sickle and 2 salvaging kits (sometimes 3 when I come across a merchant and one of them is almost running out). That’s 5-6 slots out of 44 and I’ve never gotten my inventory full.
“I don’t care one way or another” doesn’t mean anything to me. I find it annoying, and I’d like to see it changed. If you don’t care, then don’t post.
I actually agree with this. I have plenty of bag space, but I’m kinda tired of seeing my entire 20 slot bag filled with gathering and salvaging equipment, because none of it stacks together. Let me pick up 500 of each gathering tool and stack them all on my character at the same time if I want. Let me stack up 100 salvaging kits on the same backpack slot.
I hate having to go back to refill my gathering and salvaging tools every couple hours, because I had to make the choice between more tools or more loot space.
I wouldn’t mind if this was even some sort of upgrade we had to buy for gems, as long as there was some way to do it.
Yes I can confirm it is already implemented, you cannot list an item for less than what a vendor would charge.
That’s not really the issue. The issue is that selling for 1 copper over the vendor price is still a loss. After the 5% listing fee, and the 10% sales fee, you’re getting a full 15% knocked off your asking price, which puts you solidly under the vendor price for the item.
The person you were referring to was saying that the “minimum” posting price should be set so that players have to sell the item for enough to at least break even with the vendor, after the 15% that’s shaved off the top.
It kinda seems like lazy writing to me.
“Well, in this story path, we had the mentor die. What should we do for the next one?”
“Why don’t we just do the same thing for all of them?”
“BRILLIANT!”
Putting aside the repetition between the storylines, it doesn’t help that there’s not really any choices you get to make for your character that actually make any difference. You get to choose path A or path B, but both paths lead to the same goal, and don’t make any changes to how the story plays out. There’s no opportunity to fail a mission and have to approach the story from a different angle as a result. You don’t even get to choose how your character replies to most NPCs (despite the fury/dignity/charm system providing a perfect template to do so).
I don’t know if this is due to budgetary concerns, or if the writers just cut corners, but it smacks of laziness all around.
Hey, even the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is excellent at appealing to all ages: any 12-years old teen can love their charm, magic, clear and appealing character archetypes, etc; but characters talk naturally, and are filled with subtle details that tells more about them than what they’re willing to tell, including a lot of grey morality (beneath the white vs black surface, LoTR is filled with more complex issues).
Also, Avatar: The Last Airbender.
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I’m not sure how much more individual the norn can get, there’s even a norn author inside the hall of raven.
Perhaps you’re basing the entire opinion of the norn around 3 characters, and not the whole story. Their NPC banter is actually well done.
This thread has nothing to do with the NPC banter. It’s the cutscene-driven personal story that we’re having problems with. I’m not sure how you could miss that after 80+ posts.
And it’s not a matter of “oh my god, the norn all act the same way!!” It’s the fact that every single character from every single storyline acts the exact same way, and we, as players, have no say in our own characters’ reactions. This just happens to stick out more sorely in some racial storylines than others.
Then to answer you in a more simple fashion, since you feel the need to ignore the underlying parts of a story: yes, all norn act that way.
The story was a neat edition, they weren’t trying to make the next Baldurs Gate.
If you feel that way, that’s fine. However, this thread is for those who feel the need to speak up, because they feel something is wrong. Please don’t clutter the thread by wasting your and our time trying to tell us that our feelings are invalid.
One of the things I just realized that’s bugged me: the game takes a lot of time telling me about things that have happened, and the amazing things people have done, and how awesome person X, Y or Z is… but it does very little actual showing.
Going back to the human storylines, I hear some tidbits about being friends with these people I grew up with, but there’s no background, story or cutscene to drill the point home. I don’t get to see why we’re friends, or what we’ve been through, or the scrapes we’ve gotten out of together. I’m just told, “Oh, by the way, this person is your friend, so you should care about what happens to him/her.” And when they do something stupid or get in trouble five minutes later, there’s just no reason for me to care.
This holds true in the Asura storyline as well. We’re immediately thrown into this story about applying for the Snaff Prize with a machine we helped build, and after a short demonstration, we’re given the title of Snaff Prize Savant. But we have no input on the machine itself, we know next to nothing about this contest, and the title means exactly zilch to me since I don’t have any context for its importance. Not only that, but there’s no way to lost the contest, so there’s no real drive to win. It’s just like, “Ok, that happened,” and it’s never brought up again.
This sort of thing really came to my attention when I got ready to do the dream inside the pale tree with Trahearne. The Pale Tree Avatar said something about Sylvari dying at Claw Island sending ripples that could be felt by the remaining Sylvari and into the dream. Um… cool? Why can’t I see that? Why are the remaining Sylvari acting like nothing out of the ordinary has happened? Why isn’t Trahearne in the fetal position, sobbing uncontrollably, over the sheer amount of death he can physically feel ripping away a part of him from inside the dream? Why does the dream itself just look like a ghostly version of the real world, when there is supposedly a bunch of turbulence due to the recent Sylvari deaths?
If you’re going to tell me that something happened, don’t. SHOW me. Exposition and narration don’t go nearly as far as actually seeing it with my own two eyes. If it’s important enough to the story, don’t have some random NPC just tell me it happened. Show it to me in motion, show me the aftermath, give me some sort of weird, psychedelic interpretation of pain and suffering, do something.
I’m not sure how much more individual the norn can get, there’s even a norn author inside the hall of raven.
Perhaps you’re basing the entire opinion of the norn around 3 characters, and not the whole story. Their NPC banter is actually well done.
This thread has nothing to do with the NPC banter. It’s the cutscene-driven personal story that we’re having problems with. I’m not sure how you could miss that after 80+ posts.
And it’s not a matter of “oh my god, the norn all act the same way!!” It’s the fact that every single character from every single storyline acts the exact same way, and we, as players, have no say in our own characters’ reactions. This just happens to stick out more sorely in some racial storylines than others.
I think most of the people complaining about the norn never played GW1, they are that cheesy.
Their entire society is based off of who is the most awesome, and who can kill bigger creatures better.
That doesn’t give the writers license to completely ignore individuality. There’s plenty of room for racial identity and personal identity within the same character.
I just recently got into the part of the story with Trahearne, and while I wouldn’t say his voice acting is any more horrendous than a number of other NPCs, he does sound more like a bored narrator than an actual character within the story.
I’m also extremely confused as to why Gixx was suddenly subsumed as the Priory leader once the “Trinity” arc begins. I’m now dealing with this white-haired norn chick that I’ve never even seen before, and Gixx just fades away. Which is disappointing, because Gixx is one of the few NPCs that really emotes well, and really pulls off his lines.
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It changes by the second, so to a certain extent, you do want to keep checking. Within the course of an hour, it might change from 29s/100gems to 32s/100gems.
However, I would like to see a couple of buttons to do this:
- 100 gems (shows the current coin required; disappears after 10-20s; works even if you don’t have any coin)
- 100 silver (same idea for the gold tab)
The one-click allows players to realize that prices are dynamic and rapidly changing, while still providing clear/concise data …and without requiring the players to own gems or coin to see the stats.
That’s the other thing. I keep most of my coin in my bank, to share between characters, so having to go dig out my cash from my bank so I have enough coinage to check how much silver for 100 gems is annoying.
I’ve traded gold in for gems twice so far to buy new character slots. I appreciate this service, but there’s something about it that doesn’t make any sense.
Why can’t I see how much coinage I need to pay per 100 gems?
As it stands, if I want a specific number of gems, I have to guestimate the amount of coinage I’ll need, then play with the silver and copper amounts until I get the exact number of gems I want to light up on the BLTC screen.
Why does this need to be so trial-and-error? The whole high/low/average thing, and the graph that comes with it, are pretty cool. But I just don’t see any reason why this excuses the need for a way to just say “I want this number of gems, tell me how much gold I need to fork over.”
The way it works right now is just needlessly tedious and finicky.
I’m not rolling in money, but what I tend to do is complete a zone, and all events as I come across them. I generally vendor all Blue and Green drops that are not upgrades for the character I am on. I salvage white drops, and yellows I either sell or dump into the mystic forge in an attempt at something I can use depending on the mood I am in.
I have been able to buy the training manuals at each bracket without going broke, and have used some money frivolously on dyes, and crafting components to try to keep my crafting caught up with my toon (leatherworking and jewelcrafting).
I also will tend to travel on foot within a zone rather than using the waypoint system heavily, the exception being going to and from Lion’s Arch from whatever zone I am leveling in. This reduces the money I am spending on travel, and also means I kill more mobs in transit and possibly come across more events.
I add some good points here:
1. walked instead of travel – i do walked, but if i am going from here to here in the same zone and there is a bit of distance i get a little anxious due to the massive map lol and travel. And i know the higher lvl i am the more it cost.
2. Selling white/blues. Must blue armor/weapons, i tend to place them in AH instead of directly selling them to vendor. Guess thats not working much. I do lots of salvaging when it comes to white. Heck, still behind my leatherworking/huntsman.
3. Back to zone, i do completely everything within an zone and tried to do as much events as possible, some ill be honest skip, like collect this and that. If i did it and it wasnt much fun and i am travelin by it, i will skip it the next time.
I have yet to run into blue gear on the TP selling for more than 1 copper over the vendor price. Tack on the 5% listing fee, and the 10% sale fee, and you’re losing money on every sale (if you actually manage to sell them, against the other thousands of listings of the same exact item). Greens are almost as bad, with usually no more than 20-30 copper over the vendor price. For the sake of time, ease, and not getting your wallet dug into by the hidden fees, you’re best off pretty much vendoring anything green and under that you find.
That said, make sure you try to sell your greens at least once in /map before you vendor them. Every once in a while, you’ll get a hit on somebody who doesn’t know the TP prices and is willing to pay a few silver for something you would have gotten a handful of copper for, from the vendor.
Yellows and above (almost without exception) are worth listing on the TP. You may not get a massive amount of money for them, but I don’t think I’ve ever sold a Rare for less than 5x the vendor price.
Any Light Armor you were going to sell to the vendor, salvage it instead. Cloth is a big seller, and salvaging Light Armor (and salvageable cloth trophies) is the only way to get it. If you’re a leatherworker, salvage all your Medium Armor stuff as well.
Vendor the Heavy stuff, you can get all the ore you’ll ever need from mining it by hand, and with the cash you get from vendoring the Heavy Armor, you can buy more of it off the TP than you’d get for salvaging it yourself. The same goes for weapons (you can mine ore and chop lumber just fine, and all of it is cheap as hell).
Sell all Unidentified Dyes on the TP. Yes, I know that you can make major money if you get lucky and get one of the handful of extremely rare dyes. But if you’re not one of those extraordinarily lucky people, you’re going to wind up with a bunch of trash that sells for a handful of copper. Unidentified Dyes sell for 5-6 silver a piece.
Sell any crafting materials you don’t need, or don’t ever plan on using (or don’t plan on ever using again). Certain cooking materials sell decently, and all Fine-level crafting materials sell well in bulk. Lumber can be vendored if you have an over-abundance of it that you’re never going to need. Ore that you don’t need can go up on the TP.
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I don’t understand what the problem is with everybody’s game. Somebody should make a video and link it here. I completed this section in a single attempt, and was actually slightly disappointed that it was so simple.
I needed some vials of thin blood a couple days ago, and went and farmed bats for them, in a zone about 20 levels below me. I farmed up 40 of them in about an hour, with a lot of time spent chatting instead of farming. It’s not so bad, just a bit time-consuming.
Pay 600 gems for a new bank tab.
I had so much gold, I bought 2 bank tab just because I had so much food and ingredients and still had some money left over for some equipment that I needed because I was badly undergeared.
That’s beside the point. If an item is purely a crafting material (can’t be consumed), it should have a material slot on the collections tab, even if it’s a combination of other items. It needlessly takes up more space than necessary.
You know, I’ve been wondering the same thing…
I can only assume that it’s a place set aside for future player housing.
I’ve noticed this consistently over the last several days, but I have a problem with combat hanging. I’ll attack something, and my ranger will fire off a few shots, then everything will sort of freeze for a second, then the screen will play catch-up, then a few seconds later I’ll get another hang, then the screen will play catch-up again, etc etc.
This was especially pronounced when I did the Claw Island personal story quest, where everything would hang for a full 1-2 seconds at a time, followed by a major speedup for a fraction of a second, followed immediately by another full 1-2 seconds of hang time.
This hasn’t been a significant issue in solo pve, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a problem once I start pvping regularly, especially when I start playing a melee character. Is anybody else having this issue?
One big example is one of the missions where you get to choose what order’s stratagy to use. If you go with the Order of Whispers your mission is to get arrested to get into the jail to break someone out of a jail. Alright. So to get arrested you protest. You actually get a protest sign! Cool! You protest! The guards come to arrest you. You… you have to beat down about 20 of them? 30? Wait, don’t you want to get arrested? Why is there a huge battle. Finally once you get enough down another group that’s unattackable claims you’re under arrest and you let it happen? Wait, I just freaking set my huge undead minions on his pals and stabbed them with my dagger. Now I’m casually arrested? The story gets worse when it’s shown you’re put into the cell with the Whispers Agent you’re with, but you’re both fully armed and armoured still? No explanation. Madness.
Another earlier one is a Durmond Priory choice. Logic, brains, knowledge. They outsmart their opponents, was the basic concept I got from hearing them out so far! Cool! So we go on the mission. We walk straight up to the door but to the mission’s credit we try to talk our way in. We fail. Guess they’re not -that- smart. So we steal golem suits as disguises. Cool! Five minutes later the cover is blown because the Priory person was really daft again and now I’m battling all sorts of people I might as well have just killed at first to have saved time.
Again with the Priory. Your Magister mentor you’re assigned too its nuts and shows no logic whatsoever. “Join us, we are the best choice because our research gives us the advantage. Brains over brawn.” Wait. No. There’s no single part of the whole Durmond Priory quest line where anything remotely intelligent happens. I feel like I should have picked the Vigil and just gone in smashing instead of weakly disguised smashing.
This is something that bothered me as well, though this thread wasn’t created to discuss this specific problem. But just to quickly elaborate, I really disliked how every “alternative to violence” ends up in… more violence. There’s no reason we can’t have puzzles, sneaking sections, research portions, and other non-combat story branches. Afterall, that’s sort of what I expected when i joined the Priory: solving problems with research and intelligence. Not half-assed information and miles upon miles of skull-bashing.
I agree with a lot of the points. What confuses me though is why people are so critical with this game in particular.
The Secret World, another MMO, was god awful for many reasons. But no one mentioned the story, and when they did they actually COMPLIMENTED the atmosphere.
But the dialogue was horrific, it was pop-culture reference after pop-culture reference cheesily jammed down our throats. Some NPC would brief you on a mission then suddenly talk about an X-Box gamerscore, while another homeless guy would talk to you about visions and then prattle on about Pacman and Oprah.
Basically it made this game’s dialogue look like Citizen Kane. But everyone seemed to love it. Weird.
That’s what happens when you discuss a game with people who have horrible taste. Personally, I thought the dialogue for TSW was horrendous. But I also didn’t like the game, so I feel no reason to harp on about it, since I’m not playing it.
However, I AM playing this game, and I would like to see one of the game’s few weak points brought up to par with the rest of the game.
I personally do not see the point. The game is supposed to be scaled level by level. Doing stories 5 or 10 levels above the mobs what would be the point?
So an 80 could do a story meant for a level 40 at 80 and fight level 40 mobs? I don’t see why anyone would want this
Because some people care more about watching the story than they do about facing difficult/challenging content.
The point of the sidekicking system was to allow players to go into lower level zones, and still participate in events alongside other players, instead of coming in and steamrolling them, to the detriment of everybody. Personal Stories, however, don’t have involve the community, only the single player himself, so there’s no reason to sidekick them down to a lower level.
They’re in the game, they’re just not available during character creation.
First, I didn’t really expect much from GW2 in terms of voice acting or story line. It was pretty obvious to me that ANet didn’t have the resources to pull this off. And as SWTOR proved, you can have a great storyline and top notch voice acting and still have a crappy game. BUT if we are critiquing the personal story aspects…
SWTOR also proved that you can have believable voice acting in an MMO, even though they went about it the wrong way. Granted, not ALL of it was good, but most of it was better than the “epic speak” that GW2 seems to have fallen in love with.
I appreciate everybody coming in to give their 2 cents, but since I didn’t mark the thread as a spoiler thread, can we please keep the spoilers to a minimum (or at least kept inside spoiler tags)? I’ve already had a couple story elements spoiled for me that I didn’t know about, and didn’t want to know about until I got there for myself.
Sounds about right. During my playthrough of the beginning of the asura story, I thought to myself, “Ok, who is this Arcane Eye? Why is their leader a bad guy? Why would X want to keep Y information for themselves, when it would obviously hurt them to do so? Surely the story will elaborate as I play further!”
And then… nothing. The entire story branch just gets shunted off to the side so that I can choose between the three major groups, and put all the concerns of myself, my krewe, and my race behind me, never to be heard from again.
Personally, I was a little disappointed at the ease of some of the vistas. There have been several times where I thought “This would have been so much cooler if they’d put the entrance path over there, and made me do a jump puzzle through this area.”
Oh god yes, everything said in this thread – yes.
I’m sorry but the personal story writing feels so overly grandiose that the characters become cardboard cutouts, one-dimensional and cartoonish.a ‘valiant hero’ is just that, a valiant hero, he has no personality and no defining characteristics other than being that same valiant hero, is just one example.
the only character that actually made me smile is the one who really, really loves apples.
when he started to identify with the quaggin i just laughed and finally saw a character
rather than a mindless one-dimensional npc, and then he went ahead and died.
i understand the effect which was intended, the player was supposed to get angry, vengeful, motivated to push ahead and go through the story but the effect was actually quite opposite.While it seems like a lot of fantasy games nowadays overdo the “serious and dark” narrative, i’d like some of that in GW, less cartoonish good vs evil, and more grey area, more seriousness and moral ambiguity.
As a sidenote, a relatable anti-hero would also be good.
The only character I’ve really connected with like that, thusfar, is Magister Sieran. Her tendency toward quirky curiosity, desire to devour knowledge, and propensity for bucking off the rules to do just that, made me love the hell out of her. Not to mention the fact that she’s the proof that Sylvari blondes actually exist.
Love her.
Keep in mind that my little diatribe wasn’t saying
“Oh my god, GW2’s story sucks!”
I love the meta-plot. Nor was it saying that I didn’t enjoy the personal story. I did watch it and I found it interesting.
It just could have been a lot better. And I feel like, with feedback, they can work on it in upcoming expansions eventually.
It’s definitely not a deal breaker for me. Just something I kinda chuckled at.
I’d also like to point out that if I had a dime for each time somebody said the word “Hero,” or “Champion,” or any variation thereof, I’d have to give Anet a kickback on the royalties.
For the record, I don’t have a problem with the visuals on the cutscenes (I’ve played plenty of low-budget RPGs that went the “cardboard cutout” route), but admittedly, I think I’d rather just watch the characters stand around in the real world and chat, rather than cut to a separate screen to do it.
That all said, I’m sure that a lack of movement and facial expression has something to do with the dialogue problems, but I’m not sure exactly how much. The dialogue itself is pretty cringe-worthy, before taking visuals into account.
I take back what I said earlier. The voice acting IS part of the problem. I could imagine some of those lines being delivered half-believably by the right person.
Unfortunately, the dialogue just comes out campy and overdone. I thought it was just a joke between friends the first time I heard Lord Faren speak, until I realized that my character was taking him 100% seriously.
Ok, examples. This is the first one I managed to pull up. I recall thinking how horrendous the Noble human story was when I first tried it. Mostly because of Lord Faren. At one point, I recall thinking to myself, “Do I REALLY have to go save this guy? Can’t I just let the bandits have him?”
Hero: A party, Faren? For me? Or is this just an excuse to get your friends together and see what’s in my wine cupboard?
Lord Faren: Nonsense! Heroes are always popular. These nice people simply insisted on congratulating you and celebrating your brave victory.
Hero: And you insisted on breaking out my finest food and drink for the occasion.
Lord Faren: You deserve no less. Still, I can’t take all the credit. Your household staff was most helpful, even eager, to facilitate the process.
I wish my servants loved me half as much. But then, I am lovable in other ways. Ha ha.
Hero: And the less said about that, the better. Now wipe off that smirk, and let’s go enjoy my best roast duck and brandy.
In this scene, Lord Faren proves to be a shameless, finger-dipping, self-implied “lady’s man.” Not only is he all of these things, but his manner of speaking make him sound like a high-bred twit with more hot air than brains. And the Hero’s response? “Oh, that rascal!!”
Lord Faren is a caricature, not a character. His manner is out of touch with reality, and the Hero just goes along with it. And we, as the viewers, are dragged along with it, instead of getting to laugh in his face. I don’t know a person alive who can deliver those lines with a straight face.
I believe the issue is with the genre of higher fantasy that you have the expectations of epicness.
The Norn are all stoic hunters, the humans all heroic, the Charr all powerful, Asura are all genius inventors, etc.
However by constantly applying this same trope to every set of dialogue, you create a feeling of staleness.
After one hundred Norns all talking about glory in the exact same tone of voice, you lose their individuality. The characters become defined by their races instead of colored by them. Yes, a Norn might have been raised in a society that glorifies hunting and power, but would -all- Norn have the same “For glory! They shall sing my songs in the halls of etc etc” sphiel?
Cause currently, they do.
I think ArenaNet has fallen back in to the old trope that everything has to be epic. No character must show weakness. It must all be amazing. They all rise to the occasion and they are all heroes. They never once falter.
Hell, we even miss the one crowning moment of possible moral ambiguity in the series, the defection of Logan.
It’s far too black and white and far too unbelievable. It works in a limited sense, but unfortunately, it reduces the believability of the character as a multi-faceted individual if all of them share it.
So I think a bit more work needs to be done to flesh out your side characters. We don’t want all of them to be simpering cowards, but it’s not bad to hate a NPC. We don’t have to like them all. It’s more believable if there are some we like and some we find insufferable. It also adds to the story immensely if they are redeemed or not redeemed, versus us going in knowing that they are:
A) Either going to be heroes and succeed
B) Going to be Heroes and die trying.I’ll be completely honest, I really didn’t buy GW2 for the story telling. I love the game mind you, but the NPCs could use some serious work.
Great post. You said it better than I was able to.
I’d also like to point out that a lack of dialogue options within cutscenes rips players concerned with roleplaying right out of the immersion. There are countless times when I’ve wanted my character to say something in reaction to something an NPC said, and my character says the exact opposite. It just reminds me that it’s not really “my” character, it’s the character that Anet designed for me.
Actually I disagree. I admit that some of the dialogue isn’t that great but overall I think it’s pretty good. Tybalt Leftpaw (an Order of Whispers character) had some of the best dialogue I’ve seen in an MMO. If you came into this game expecting Mass Effect quality dialogue you’re going to be disappointed. But if you take it for what it is it’s good.
If by “Mass Effect quality dialogue,” you mean “dialogue that’s natural and believable,” then yeah, I did.
Nobody TALKS like this. That’s my point. It’s stilted and extremely campy and sounds like something you would expect from amateur hour at your local community theater.
For the record, it’s not the fault of the voice-actors, it’s the script that’s the problem.
In what content is the writing/VO problematic for you? The ambient world stuff? The personal story? The dungeons? They were all handled differently. The more specific examples you give, the better we can understand your feedback. I realize that this post is in the personal story section, but I want to know if your criticism is limited to that.
Thanks!
Sorry. Since this is the Personal Story forum, I just assumed that it was clear I was referring to the Personal Story.
Unfortunately, I feel like I’m not explaining myself very well. Let me see if I can find some specific examples to pick apart. I’ll post again when I have something more concrete.
Actually I disagree. I admit that some of the dialogue isn’t that great but overall I think it’s pretty good. Tybalt Leftpaw (an Order of Whispers character) had some of the best dialogue I’ve seen in an MMO. If you came into this game expecting Mass Effect quality dialogue you’re going to be disappointed. But if you take it for what it is it’s good.
If by “Mass Effect quality dialogue,” you mean “dialogue that’s natural and believable,” then yeah, I did.
Nobody TALKS like this. That’s my point. It’s stilted and extremely campy and sounds like something you would expect from amateur hour at your local community theater.
For the record, it’s not the fault of the voice-actors, it’s the script that’s the problem.
So, I’m enjoying myself in this game. Even the personal stories aren’t that bad, and I like to hop in and see what my story has next in store for me.
But dear lord, some of the dialogue is horrendous. I feel like most of the dialogue was written by a rejected high fantasy novelist. The only thing it’s missing is the obligatory “old english” inflections.
The least painful dialogue comes from the Asura and Charr storylines, where the characters actually show a little bit of self-interest. But even they aren’t safe from all the Hero/Villain and Good/Evil talk.
There’s no sarcasm, there’s no sense of irony, there’s very little humor. The conversation text boxes you can read between cutscenes are more believable than the actual cutscenes themselves.
But I kinda feel like I’m the only person that feels this way. Am I?
I wanted to make one to have a character of every race.
They’re not really doing it for me though. They’re a little too “wholesome” for my taste. They’re curiosity about the world can be entertaining (and there are a few sylvari NPCs I really like), but the “I AM THE HERO, COME TO BANISH EVIL FROM THIS FOUL LAND!!” approach the personal story takes is gag-inducing.