Guild Wars 2

I’m more concerned about the stuff in the room and if she gets her hands on anything that could either be boobytrapped or worse. Despite being a brilliant engineer, there are things in there that could warp her mind or mess her up badly. I mean, look at Scarlet, sure she was conceited and arrogant, but she sure got messed up after the mind opening device.

I was thinking about “what kind of story I’d like to see” but how can I explain it when the story I want to see is hampered by the fact that it stop being my character’s personal story after Claw Island. I get the answers of “not enough resources”, “too much work”, “lack of voice actors” etc. etc. but if you want an honest answer from me, “The kind of story I’d like to see should deal with the triumphs and defeats of my character and how my character interacts with the world and people around him/her.”

The whole issue of Trahearne stems from the focus moving away from your character and to him. You may get credit sometimes, but other times it was down played and/or you were ignored or you weren’t so important any more aside from our Chia Pet. That’s why people thought it wasn’t their personal story, the focus was TOO MUCH on Trahearne. Who, by the way, wasn’t such a terrible character, but his introduction into a player’s story when they never met him before is QUITE jarring.

Putting aside Trahearne and its own kettle of problems there is also the over use of D.E. 2.0 which unfortunately dominates the Living Story in such a way that the player feels left out at times. Sure I get the token text box, but it does NOT branch, so what’s the point? Especially when pet characters turn around as if they didn’t hear you texting and just repeat it and take the credit for the idea – (I’m looking at you Kasmeer!)

All I want is the one I started with in my Personal Story. The one that said “Hey you! This is your story. We’re focusing on you.”

I think if we could actually have proper branching events occur depending on the class a player plays that something like this could be used by your player instead of relying on an NPC to use in the story.

At that point, it would be ‘so what’ you can’t do it in game play mechanics, the point is you’re not suppose to, you’re doing it in a story section. (As we know, story scenes let you do any number of things you can’t do when you’re just playing the game cuz it’s “story” – time to pull the bunny out of the hat) Story does not = game play otherwise all those times you died playing this game… story wise would say you were dead and oh well.

And before anyone says you can’t do branching like that cuz “branching gives more work”… it doesn’t have to give more work depending on how it is done. It’s a detail in an event that has come and gone… it doesn’t need to be referenced again.

(Although, I’m NOT saying I want it to never be referenced again, I’m just saying that is how they could avoid doing the extra work – although a flowchart on who did what and how did this diverge could help keep track.)

The problem with Kasmeer doing it is only so that the pet Mesmer can have more air time and can then have it referenced later in the story. Personally, I’ve seen quite a bit of Kasmeer, I rather see more of Jory. I’d love to see a bit more of a development with her and NOT through Belinda being killed or anything like that.

If I understand this correctly (I’ve yet to play that particular scenario) the pc asuran makes steam brains instead of Scarlet, but now Scarlet “claims” credit?

But given that Scarlet when she was Ceara seemed not above doing a few questionable things and she was rather conceited and arrogant, I wouldn’t put it past her to claim things as “hers” when they might not have been. Or two great minds work alike and they came to similar conclusions.

It has got me interested in playing an Asura in this scenario though. Just to see exactly what happened in that story.

I know some of these might have been mentioned, but I figure I’d add my voice to it seeing how we got that lovely bobble head table, water balloons and the awesome ninja outfit already:

I’d love to see:

- a Japanese style school outfit for boys and girls;
- a new style of underclothing – yellow is (ducks head) old and disgusting;
- interactive dancing for players – two people dancing together like ballroom dancing;
- have an option to carry other players and blow kisses emotes (will throw money for these).

Since it’s an instance and technically outside the “mainstream” that’s an interesting idea for the future. Though if it were up to me, I rather see a variety of characters other than the “biconics” visit the home instances and offer a list of side quest missions.

If you actually did the story as a street rat and then talk to her, you get additional flavour text from her which was actually a nice touch to see.

@ Kalavier:

I’m sorry if I confused you, but I only used colours as an example. It could easily be something else, but something that shows NOT tells the player character what is happening.

To me, the method used failed. I don’t think a mesmer with her background should be able to pick up things in the way the executed lines suggest. That’s a failing in delivery despite wanting to convey that maybe these are mesmer powers or maybe something else.

Khisanth.2948:

Shardelyss.4807:

You get a quartz node for your home, but in Dry Top there are areas where there are quartz nodes you can mine as well.

That is probably because Ambrite sheets require quartz.

Sorry. I was sloppy. I should have quoted the post I replied to.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

They only give us home instance crafting nodes for things that can’t be crafted anywhere else. The Cactus plants aren’t going anywhere since Dry Top is a permanent map, so we won’t get them in the home instance.

That whole scene with her “I KNOW she is lying” felt so painfully forced that I thought it ruined what it was trying to deliver. In fact it left me thinking “This is something Jory who runs the agency should have seen and said instead.”

Perhaps the voice actor was instructed to deliver it that way or simply failed in her delivery, but to me Kasmeer’s voice was too rigid with absolute confidence and “I know what I’m doing, so believe me in no uncertain terms” tone that… it ruined the whole scene for me. It didn’t make sense that she should be so adamant about a person’s posture when they are DYING!

If she had said, “It’s hard to explain this, but sometimes I see colours. Flashes that come and go so fast and I saw something this time… a flicker of colour around her face. I know… I know she was lying.”

THIS! This would have worked for me. Because with Kasmeer being a noble and still acting like she’d been a pampered rich noble far longer than a poor noble… saying she sees thing in posture should NOT make her Apollo Justice. But if it comes through magic and some so called gift then at least that would be a development that works.

You get a quartz node for your home, but in Dry Top there are areas where there are quartz nodes you can mine as well.

Filaha.1678:

tekfan.3179:

As far as I understood our pc is the leader of the group. So why is it then that the pc is the only character staying behind in the cutscenes of the instance “Cornered”?

Because after Scarlet blew up Marjory and Braham, our character was the only one smart enough to remember that rushing someone with explosives is a bad idea.

I loled!

I would hate to see the player character have to drone on in X number of chapters later about how “I am fine now! Stop worrying about me and LET me lead.”

Stuff happened, you do the ox load of the work, other people get voice overs.

Tom.6478:

Just curious…what do you think of them.

It takes 10 of them just to see you get nothing.

I waited until I had 250 sand and got 2 geodes out of it. :/

I know the mechanic of this fight. It’s very easy to avoid spots and to jump when the big circle is out.. the problem I have is that I get huge number of players on the rock spamming so many spells that I can’t see the smaller circles. I can definitely time the leaps, but player spells… ugh. Hard to see through the mess of them.

I actually got onto that bone bridge before she pulled it out from under me… wasn’t a fun time after that I can tell you. I hit the floor like a sack of wet cement, died and was unable to continue (no check points etc. popped up at all). At that point I said wth and used a rez orb… and then promptly was stuck at the bottom of the pit as their prisoner.

I think it was Jory’s way of getting even when in the previous chapter where Kas claims, “something is blocking my magic”… I, out of spite, cast portal and then make a portal on the other side while saying:

“Don’t know about you, but my mesmer skills are working just fine.”

If I didn’t know better, I would think that Trahearne is attracted to the Player Character in the same way Sylvari pair off with other people they respect and admire. He doesn’t care what race, gender etc. you are, he just wants you at his side. (Which would have been interesting if we were allowed to pursue a romance with him. ^.^ )

Which definitely makes sense. He needs a strong female/male player to support and encourage him. In that regard, it makes a lot more sense of him needing you for everything and I definitely got that vibe.

The problem is though, the execution of the spoken dialogue often times leaves the player thinking WTH? But I just… I just explored this area, did this quest and killed x number of monster/elites/champions etc. and yet, the story now seems to revolve around him?!

With examples that could point to the discussion the Mother Tree has with Trahearne and the attempt made on your life etc… there are potentials here to make good comments about the player character, but often time they are missed or ignored. At least that’s how I felt when I stood by the Mother Tree who seemed to ignore that I was there for the most part… I might be a vain creature, but at least say something as important to me as you did for your son. As well as, don’t tell me they’re trying to get to you through me. Maybe it’s worded poorly, but I am the biggest threat to the Dragon and it knows it. It’s not afraid of Trahearne, it’s afraid of me, but while I get that feeling… the responses I get from others seem to try to negate that.

It’s discrepancies like that which bothered me and which alienated some of the other players into hating him. Thankfully, I’m not one of the haters, but I definitely can see why people resent him as it makes sense. If only enough focus was equally shared between the player and Sylvari leader. It would have lessened the resentment.

But I wonder… does anyone think the mention of “kill the leader” could be referred to Trahearne? Master of Peace is referred to as Master (you might say leader, but I wouldn’t referred to him as that as he does have a Title) but it could also referred to the Leader of the Pact. I would totally laugh if you have to rush to protect our fearless Leader again. (Don’t worry buddy, I’m coming to save you!!!! again!"

(…or it could refer to “And their Leader…” but that’s a whole different story.)

I think the reason most people find her voice annoying isn’t because of her voice per se, its because EVERY time you draw near her she says exactly the same thing. Perhaps it might have been less noticeable if she spoke those lines every 30 minutes, not every 1 minute or if she had a follow up dialogue that spoke of other things.

But hey, maybe there will be more voice text and it gets unlocked later.

BobbyStein.2315:

Zin.1673:

The character is indeed voiced. Did you ever played your personal story ?

Warning: nerdy devspeak ahead!

The player character (PC) hasn’t had new voice recorded since the game launched, so you’ll only hear your character speak in the following circumstances: conditional chatter, in cinematic conversations in the Personal Story, and in painterly “full” cinematics. We retired cinematic conversations with the Living World, so right now the PC can only “talk” through unvoiced dialog trees.

We’re exploring some technical improvements that may allow the PC to speak under new circumstances, but it’s actually a bigger undertaking than one would imagine due to the complexity of player voice implementation (10 possible voices, currently shared lines of dialog that we want to split out, scene timing per language, etc.). That’s about all I can say at the moment.

In short, we’re looking to make the PC speak again, but it’s going to take a bit of time to redo the code and content pipelines to make it work, not to mention updating our tools to allow us to generate PC lines that deviate based on race & gender, prior accomplishments, etc. We’re not ready to announce what those changes will actually be or when they might be deployed, but we’re seriously looking into it.

As always, thanks for playing.

If this is true, then you have no idea how happy that made me to read. I had the first fan girl moment of a lifetime and I don’t normally squeee at all considering I’m usually so pessimistic.

But yay! This would be incredibly awesome if my characters can speak again. Even if it starts off as being generic dialogue at first…. but to just have a voice again and not be the invisible person holding the door for other characters to walk through.

?

?

?

Braham: Hey there.

Me: Hi, how are you doing?

Braham: Did you… just talk?

Taimi: What’s going on?

Braham: I think he just talked.

Me: Hi, shorty.

Taimi: HEY! He did talk. Hey wait a minute, did you just call me shorty? You do remember I have Scruffy here.

Me: (laughs) Never Change.

Kasmeer: Hey guys? Ready to move on? Is something wrong with our friend here?

Me: Taimi is threatening to flatten me with her Golem.

Taimi: It was only a warning.

Kasmeer: Did… he just speak?

Braham: Yeah. All this time and I thought he was a mute.

Jory: I heard talking, what’s going on here?

Kasmeer: The Commander just…talked.

Jory: Right. You didn’t just talk, did you?

Me: I might have, the verdict is still not in yet.

Jory: @#$%?! Does Rox know?

Me: Well -

Rox: Oh I knew already. Why do you think I’m sitting way over here. That guy can’t shut up for two minutes.

Me: O:-)

Pibriamal.8719:

And they do acknowledge you. They talk about you being the pact commander and taking down Zhaitan. Taimi even changes her dialouge if you’re an Asura or an Engineer. They become a little racist and harsh to you on a Sylvari character.

I know people have mentioned this, but in my play through of the Living Story, I got none of this. If these are side token comments made by the cast, then that would explain why they are so easily missed.

Edited for: So my special power I bring to this team that I’m suppose to be an equal in is… being the Commander of the Pact. I guess my special power is to summon Traherne! To me!

I wouldn’t call this a Personal Story. This is a Living Story event masquerading in the Personal Story tab, but Personal Story it ain’t.

If I had to rate it as a Living Story it gets a 3/5 stars. I penalized two stars for it having too much of a focus on Kas – 1 and making her too important over the remaining cast -1. I know it’s a first intro into the new story, but a mesmer who can blink over chasms when the player mesmer can’t… is over powered. (Edited for clarification, I refer to Living story as the parts in which you do the instanced missions – I am not including the map with the other events – Just the story part of living story – if that makes sense).

If I had to rate it as a Personal Story it would get 0/5 stars for failing to have

a. voiced content for the character
b. a story that involves your character (not just click text with no choice)
c. invests you as an important force of nature – you killed a dragon!
d. characters that actually recognize you and don’t just reference you as an aside like the last event where Kiel calls you their leader in an off handed manner and YET never actually takes the time to say anything more about you like she does for the others.
(lots of games include the player character name in the text even if they don’t include it in the speech)
e. content that doesn’t just ignore that you are there and actually reacts to your actions

It lost one star for each of those.

So for me this isn’t a personal story at all, but a Living Story event in which my poor character does the ox load of the work and gets no credit for it again.

What I loved:

The new ninja outfit. That was awesome. Got one for me and my spouse. That was a well designed outfit. Kudos to the artist who did that one.

What I liked:

a) I like the kites we get to “kite” over and the Inquest we can kill while doing it. That was actually quite fun getting a chance to kill a lot of evil asurans.

b) The new champ chain is also a great way to keep level 80s in a level 80 zone. The level of map chat is slightly improved.

c) Sandstorms. (though, depending on the moment, I might change my mind on this)

What I didn’t like:

a) I’m not actually complaining about the diving goggles, but on my way up to the top, I hit a few areas that shouldn’t have had invisible “roofs” so to say. So I’d jump and hit something that shouldn’t be there and then fall to my death. Having access to better camera angles might have solved this though.

b)The duration of Aspect powers should last longer than what it is now. If this has been limited during the previous event though, I think I would have been less surprised when I found out it had such a short duration during this one.

c) Lack of Way points – should be self explanatory. Should have had one more way point to the far west to form a triangle.

What I really didn’t like:

a) Our player character yet again having no voiced dialogue. There isn’t even a need to reference the old stuff, the new lines (limited lines)you get to click through though should be voiced. It’s rather depressing and discouraging to see my character just stand there and “click” dialogue that doesn’t really engage him or her with the ‘DE 2.0’. I shouldn’t be left feeling like the odd man out when the other characters engage with each other and I’m standing there with small token hints that I may or may not exist for them. The best part of the game for me was hearing my character speak and I miss it. (If I wanted a mute character I’d play Chrono Trigger or Half Life)

b) Also, I wasn’t particularly happy watching the other characters move around in the small cut scenes while mine is standing facing the wrong way. It’s rather sad to see everyone rush off to fight and there’s my character in the corner with his backside showing. I would have been a lot more happier seeing my character involved in the events.