Guild Wars 2

Kovac.4372:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Linguistically Inept.6583:

Elbegast.6970:

What are you rambling on about?

logic

Counter-question:

How do we know the Order of Whispers isn’t aware of her background? All we know is they haven’t acted yet . . . which can be handled with two reasons (mutually exclusive):

- If the Living Story happens after the Personal Story, then the Order is probably working on establishing the next easy target among the dragons and expending effort in that direction. They probably were not watching someone who did not appear to be an immediate threat. Of course, by now there’s probably up to a dozen agents putting pieces together.

- If the Living Story happens concurrently with the Personal Story, the Order might be . . . slightly busy currently.

The Molten alliance gives strength to the Flame Legion which could threaten the charr-human peace treaty. The Aetherblades threaten Lion’s Arch, a place of unity among races in a Dragon infested Tyria and during a time where the Pact is about to form, is being formed or is newly formed.

And if that isn’t enough, the Queen of Kryta is in peril and so is the capital city of the human species on Tyria.

I think the Dragons are a less of an immediate threat and the Order’s resources would in reality be pointed elsewhere.

Very good points, and it really does depend on where in comparison to the Personal Story we are. Also, if you recall? There were Order agents in the Molten Alliance looking up things and none of them had yet determined Scarlet was involved; quite possibly because she wasn’t directly and constantly involved beyond setting things in motion.

Either that or the agents (I can tell of two for certain, but I suspect three to five based on my gut) never were able to penetrate that deeply without getting caught. They’re good, but they’re not perfect.

Gizmo.8623:

darkace.8925:

Gizmo.8623:

Dredge have very primitive weapon

They’ve got sonic weaponry, armored personnel vehicles, automated defense turrets, mortars, battle suits, and drills capable of boring holes large enough for troops to walk through. I’d hardly call their weaponry primitive.

Compare it to Asura’s technology. Or Charr weaponry.
In the World of Tyria, Dredge technology is very primitive.
Even their main weapons – sonic ones are weak.
At least that’s how I see it.

Dredge technology is primitive, but effective in the realms they employ it: underground and near mountains.

Asura technology is a wondrously powerful option but it runs the problem of (by its nature) being mostly prototypes which get the attention of others for being powerful. By it being prototypes, they’re prone to malfunctions (often, as we see . . . ). Also, a lot of their things seem much more focused in energy manipulation rather than physical presence. In short? They’re impressive but easily broken.

Charr technology is wonderfully direct and about as primitive in some ways. See, the charr seem to value things which are proven to work and experiment very little. They work on mechanics rather than magic.

The dredge? Their tech seems designed for mining uses as well as offensive uses, possibly to permit their mining teams to not be helpless if they run into trouble. Given the dredge outlook (anything not dredge is trouble) . . .

Namica.2951:

Well, reading her short story made it rather clear that those people talking about her past having depth were dead wrong. We can add more to her sueness:

There’s depth there, but you’re right in that a lot of details got added which kind of tweak the detectors for “mary sue”. On the other hand, we got one very important part:

We saw there is in fact a personality in there other than “I’m going to mess up things and have fun”.

No, she’s not the deepest villain out there, but I’m noticing some parallels with our dear departed Vizier’s late goals before the Door of Komalie was shut.

Wolfheart.1938:

I am really conflicted on this very issue, Tobias. I think that way more story should be in game, but as you have mentioned, the effort could go unnoticed by the great majority of the players.

We had story snippets here and there during F&F, how many players bothered piecing them together?

I did. I know a couple guildmates did, and I know for each one of us about . . . a hundred times as many people did, by assumption. That’s still a minor, miniscule, amount of players compared to the active accounts in the game.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

Elbegast.6970:

What are you rambling on about?

logic

Counter-question:

How do we know the Order of Whispers isn’t aware of her background? All we know is they haven’t acted yet . . . which can be handled with two reasons (mutually exclusive):

- If the Living Story happens after the Personal Story, then the Order is probably working on establishing the next easy target among the dragons and expending effort in that direction. They probably were not watching someone who did not appear to be an immediate threat. Of course, by now there’s probably up to a dozen agents putting pieces together.

- If the Living Story happens concurrently with the Personal Story, the Order might be . . . slightly busy currently.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In the Grove, the Order of Whispers is very open. Unusually so. It seems that the Order of Whispers holds a “mostly book open” approach to the sylvari. They probably trust the Pale Tree enough, given the Tree’s stated intentions and actions. It would be rather rude of the Whispers to exclude the sylvari because of something they cannot control.

And in fact, doing this means that there’s a good chance for future sylvari agents who don’t even need to be taught how to be an agent.

Funny thing is, I see the Order doing that and expect they REALLY don’t tell the sylvari everything and are using this “mostly open-book” approach to draw them in. It’s easier that way.

However, I do expect the Order does specially choose what they subject sylvari to as far as missions go. Much as they would specially consider charr for some missions over others.

In the Order, the right hand had better not be knowing what the left is up to.

Wolfheart.1938:

Oh, and since she’s taken a lot of interest in us, I suppose she’ll stick around for a while. So it’s totally reasonable that we will answer those questions in due time. The recent blog post is a start, for example.

This really is a minor issue, but . . .

I think the blog story posts show there’s not bad writing involved and there are ideas behind the characters. I also think there should be some way of including some of these things into the game itself for us to come across. I’m not talking a book you open, or a dialogue which drops it all on you, or a cutscene . . . those can be really ham-fisted.

But a lab space somewhere choked by vines as mentioned at the end of the story? Or a dialogue option from that smith mentioned in Hoelbrak (“Do you know anything about this Scarlet person?” “I didn’t know her by that name, but yes . . .”). The players could piece it together by searching out the clues.

There’s two things stopping that from happening:

- Developers don’t expect players to go through that level of searching by default.

- Some players may resent having to search for the story.

And as some guy who ran at least two story-driven tabletop experiences? There’s nothing more frustrating than leaving clues which can be found easily and having players not bother, then complain later.

Fringilla Vigo.8594:

The only thing that matters – I’ll repeat that – Is that I want to be able to work towards my goals ANYHOW effective by playing open world content.

I do get that, I’m just not sure how your goals (working up multiple characters) doesn’t translate to a multiplication of work. Or expenses. I play open world content more than Living Story content myself (at least until Clockwork Chaos hit and they kinda meshed). I don’t . . . REALLY . . . find a problem with getting what I’m after.

Though, for notes, I do set my bar rather low on what skins I want. I run with simpler ones, more often, and don’t really like the fancy ones from Living Story or dungeons, or Fractals. I’m more concerned about DYES and getting the color schemes I want for characters. (Aaaaand that is a whole different expense, indeed. Luckily I don’t like how Abyss and Celestial look….)

And I don’t think I’m alone in that.

You’re not.

Oh, on that – why don’t you have just one toon and max it out? Answer is simple – The thing I find most pleasant in MMO’s is to create character, give it some personality, gear it up, make it look I want. After that job is done, I create another and I come back to other toon just for pure fun or whenever I “need” that class/setup (dungeon/wvw/pvp, you name it)

You and I are kind of alike on that. I have one character (Tobias Trueflight) who is my main. Because I’m a glutton for punishment and play a ranger in both this and GW1 without relying on pure gimmick. I often pick up three to four other characters based on what other classes/professions appeal to my play style and I don’t feel uncomfortable playing.

For instance? I couldn’t handle necromancer or mesmer in GW1. In GW2 I make a horrible elementalist and thief. I have a warrior in both games which I rather adored playing because it was somewhat straightforward. I also have a guardian I’m trying out and haven’t decided if I like or not.

. . . and, notably, I’m trying to play through the storyline on multiple race/order/choices so I can see more of the Personal Story. (Some of it is better than other parts, which is something for another forum.) That’s probably the biggest reason to do alts in this game, by the way. Check out other races / orders.

So I think we’re not that far apart . . . we just have different values of what we’re looking for in working a character up. And I’m still not sure what expenses are so incredible as to require farming outside the four things I listed. I saw your other two points, but I think they could be much less expensive compared to the ones I listed. (Which are the ones which pretty much necessitate some level of farming and/or luck.)

Zenith.6403:

Junkpile.7439:

This game need hard non zergable raid content which would give good loot (like pieces of full armor and gear sets). Guild challenge would be good if there would be some kind of challenge (anybody have ever fail one of these?), some kind of boss mechanics and good reward.

- Why do you people always complain that this game is not hard? Why are you so invested in this? Why not go play some hard game that actually challenges you intellectually, like chess?

Because they’re not THIS game, with whatever it is the person who is saying it likes about this game. They’re invested in this because they like the lore, they care about the world, they really like that one detail in the game they find better than anywhere else.

They care about this game, and not another one. So of course, they want this game to adopt something else they want so they don’t have to balance two separate entities.

Winds.3087:

nexxe.7081:

Haha. I hope so. I can’t stand Logan. He does nothing but whine and cry all the time. A terrible character overall.

I can’t stand entire destiny’s edge. They do nothing but whine and cry all the time. Terrible guild overall.

I’ll note there are guilds which I’ve been in which were pretty much exactly this bad. (Not Guild Wars guilds, they’ve generally been better behaved. Weird.)

Though I’m in half agreement. I can’t stand Zojja’s attitude, Caithe and Eir didn’t grab me, and I like Rytlock and Logan more due to them seeming more involved in their race’s work.

. . . I may also like Logan due to having “known” his great, great, great, great, great grandparents.

It’s simple. They’re allowed to join so they don’t have a reason to start looking for reasons not to trust the Order of Whispers.

They’re allowed to join, but from what I can tell? Not all information is shared equally in the Order. The Lightbringers operate with a broad set of knowledge they can draw on, but agents act on a “need to know” basis.

And the Master quietly pulls the strings and determines things with his identity and whereabouts kept a close secret.

Please do work with this style of "game engine cutscene’ like you did for GW1 – it really does come off better. And I’m sure it does come up with some extra work to get it to work properly. (And some systems it still doesn’t . . . )

Fringilla Vigo.8594:

Is it that much that I’m asking for?

No, it’s not. And yes, it is. Sixteen characters to fully-geared? That’s a tall order in most single player games I remember playing. Well, except for X-Com.

Do forgive me, but I expect most designers expect a player to find one character they “click with”, that they really feel attached to and play them with alts to change it up now and then. And that’s just because if you’re working one character, you’re not working another one, so you are going to have a longer and more grueling task to grow your second, third, et cetera . . . characters

So, no, you’re not asking for a lot . . . but I don’t see a way of looking at sixteen characters (or even a quarter of that) and not thinking “that’s a lot of work”.

Gizmo.8623:

lordkrall.7241:

Just because you are too lazy to actually pay attention doesn’t mean it is not there.

I don’t deny that I was lazy to not find all the information but the story is really hard to follow, imo. It tells one thing and shows the other.
Survivors are pouring into Hoelbrak and Black Citadel. Correct me if I’m wrong but did anyone seen even one person fleeing? For whole time of the attacks of Molten Alliance on Norn and Charr we were fixing signs and collecting mementos from dead people for some characters who suddenly appeared asking for them. This was a bit too much for me already.

There were refugees on the road, with pack dolyaks. You could score volunteer points for helping “Injured Refugees” which were on the paths the signs were directing people through.

I find it hard to think you missed those, or the burned-out homestead and ranch in Wayfarer’s Foothills and Diessa Plateau respectively. Though not impossible, if you weren’t going there. And, well, you may not have had a reason to.

Then Karka assault. Well, I’d say that it was more of few Karkas appearing here and there. And later hundreds of heroes assaulted their home killing ancient being. Because why not, yes?

The karka trouble was older than that, and they WERE a huge problem for the weekend of Lost Shores. They would go into Garrenhoff, or Morgan’s Spiral, and sometimes Lion’s Arch (twice scripted) and seriously mess things up. The Lionguard got Investigator Ellen Kiel to get information together from adventurers about where they were from, and how it was possible to harm them. (A special solvent weakens the shells.)

Then the Lionguard went on the offensive and worked down through Southsun Cove battering a path, raising a bridge, and setting up a base camp before scouting out the hive and figuring out how to kill the Ancient Karka (boil it in lava).

Later, Canach incited everything into a frenzy, which was still a huge number of karka calling Southsun Cove home.

Of course that if you want you can elegantly connect all of this into story.
We destroyed Molten Alliance facilities, Pirate base, we destroyed all that was to destroy, we are still destroying, there’s no stopping for us and there is still more.

The world hasn’t changed ONE BIT due to all these attacks. Not a single thing is different. At least in the game. We all may IMAGINE that there are cities burned, people killed or kidnapped, chaos everywhere.

There were things different. Cragstead was a bombed out ruin during Frost and Flame when we could get in there. I haven’t been back yet to see if it’s rebuilt. There was a small ranch near Butcher’s Block and a smaller steading near the Frozen Maw which got wiped out.

These current invasions? No, there’s no changes. But then, that doesn’t seem to be the point of the attacks in the first place. They seem to be more “you’re going to dance to the tune I call, and not the one you want to follow”.

Gandarel.5091:

I’m not talking about the gods. I’m taling about rewriting what magic is, how magic works and how dragons are involved, how is the leader of the stone summit is kinda-involved with Jormag, how is Glint a dragon champion (I can still accept this connection a bit), making Ascalon ancestral charr alnd to give them a ‘rightful claim’ so GW1 players won’t have the rightful reasons to agree with the separatists and hate the charr, and how they rewrite the whole calendar with adding 5 extra days and so on.

And yes, to a lesser extent they slowly take away every credit they gave to the gods. There are humans in Tyria who don’t believe in the gods and that is BS.

You’re not talking about the gods, but I’m talking about why the story can’t have kept going the way it was without some massive changes and opening things up.

Also, magic had to be rewritten how it works because the classes and the stark division of magic was rewritten. I have no idea where the Stone Summit figure into this. (I do know they had a desperate decision to try waking the Great Destroyer supposedly, but I also assumed that was panic on the part of the Deldrimor High Priest.) The calendar day count is/was a completely trivial detail, however.

Ascalon being originally charr territory is acceptable considering they were absolutely heck-bent on taking it even with the Wall in the way. It sort of makes sense it wasn’t a conquest (that was after they rolled through Ascalon like it was nothing and “heck, why stop here?”) but vengeance on the humans.

(In character, one of my characters DOES hold deep-seated anger at charr if I ever roleplay it up. I think I creeped some people out though, so I had to knock it off saying I needed a new charr-hide rug.)

Glint . . . yeah, let’s all be honest? We had absolutely no idea how Glint could be reconciled with the Elder Dragons. We still don’t know how Kuunvaang is.

And on the topic of the Elder Dragons? We still don’t have one lick of sense about how they manage to exist at all if they wake up, strip the civilization from the world, and then just go back to sleep.

Gizmo.8623:

“Hey, I play in that game that has this great Living World – you got mobs spawning that invade, but they just stand there. You get main villain who is defeated but doesn’t care. It’s really great, you should try it. Loot is in abundance, you don’t need to immerse at all to enjoy it. Ah, supposedly there is a story which is not told at all. You need to watch youtube to know what is going on IF you want to know. Really, great product of XXI century and veterans of MMO genre.”

“Dude, let me know when the Smoke Monster shows up and I’ll tune in okay? Til then it’s just a bunch of people on an island not doing anything.”

Also, give me five hours of playtime in a game of your choice, and I could probably write up an equally biting cynical summation of it. Well, except for Minecraft, I can do that in one sentence ten minutes in.

“You mess around with these blocks which look like they’re straight out of Nintendo, then the sun sets and you die from not knowing there were enemies which would kill you.”

By the by, from a couple posts back?

Gizmo.8623:

@Tobias Trueflight:
That’s what I’m talking about. We are killing them. Defeating them. They are being eradicated. Chaos would be if culprits wouldn’t get caught. Here they are slaughtered without survivors.

The chaos isn’t about them getting left to go do whatever, it’s in causing people to scramble all over the world (note, we’re not supposed to consider Waypoint use as something NPCs do, thus not in the “reality” of the world) fighting back an invasion (mostly of clockwork creatures which, possibly, don’t suffer the same rate of casualties as the other two factions in play) which . . . win or lose, Scarlet pulls back.

Chaos isn’t the win condition, it’s the effect these invasions have on the world until such time as Scarlet is forced to withdraw them entirely. (Which as we learn, isn’t happening at the end of this story section. But it happens less frequently, so she does have less to throw at us in a semblance.)

Tachenon.5270:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Tachenon.5270:

Remember the Refugee Child’s Drawing? I still have mine… anyway, what if in the background of that drawing there had been a mysterious (and funny-looking) green person with weird hair…

Which would be weird, since I always thought it was a drawing of “the hero” as a thank-you.

In the background. Some little something we might not even notice at first. We’d be all, ‘Awww, isn’t that sweet," and then "Say, that’s a funny looking tree. Wait. That’s not a tree! That’s a person. Who is that?’

Good idea . . . but it could raise a lot of questions later. At least, that exact method. Personally, I’d have stuck it in the Order of Whispers dead-drop locations as an offhanded comment left. Or continued using them at ALL during the Living Story as a means of hiding information for player characters who were Whispers-affiliated.

Wukunlin.8461:

I also don’t understand why the obby shards have to be in that specific temple.

Short answer: Lore reasons.

Longer answer: Obsidian Shards were a high-tier component for “Obsidian Armor” (regarded as THE status symbol armor . . . often in pure Black or White Dye, though for a short time Pink was in) in Fissure of Woe. They ONLY dropped in that one place which was a never-ending battleground between Balthazar’s faithful and his half-brother Menzies’ armies.

Fringilla Vigo.8594:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Fringilla Vigo.8594:

So where is “play the game the way you like” choice?

A counter-inquiry.

What exactly do you need the gold for? I mean, there’s a lot of stuff which can be expensive, or IS expensive (seriously, cultural armor, WTF?) but what else is there to spend it on?

Right now the only thing to spend large amounts of gold on are either unnecessary power boosts or dressing up your characters in certain appearances of gear.

I don’t need it in a way that I must have it to play the game. But having 16 characters myself I want to dress them the way I like – in other words I spend my money on a vanity items.

But let me reiterate your question – what do you need to do in an MMO at all? We all play for different reasons and we have different goals, various approaches, but there is absolutely nothing that you need to do in an MMO.

So sorry, but I think that your argument is invalid.

It’s not an argument. It’s just a question to provoke some answers and discussion. And it’s been on my mind a lot lately with how much people talk about the gold they’re “needing to rake in”. I literally pored over looking for things I really required a lot of gold to get.

I came down to exactly four things:

- Gem conversion. (So you don’t want to, or can’t afford real money to buy Gems with. Fine, I get it, I was there before. It’s not cheap. But it’s probably easier to pool $20 than to farm/grind.)

- Cultural weapons/armor. (Unbeknownst to some, there are cheaper transmutable skins you can get sometimes. But it takes some looking.)

- Ascended back items. (All those Tier 6 Materials . . . oy. There’s a reason I crunched numbers and determined I didn’t really need those to stay competetive in PvE.)

- Legendaries. (Specifically, Precursor purchases along with . . . again, Tier 6 Materials.)

I haven’t found piles on piles of gold (to the tune of 30/day) is even close to normal operating costs.

So, no, there’s no argument from me. I’m actually seeking a discussion opening with the question. It’s weird because a lot of times I don’t actually GET an answer as to why people want to have the money.

Gizmo.8623:

@Tobias Trueflight:
That’s what I’m talking about. We are killing them. Defeating them. They are being eradicated. Chaos would be if culprits wouldn’t get caught. Here they are slaughtered without survivors.

We are not chasing them. We are massacring them without mercy.
Only Scarlet escaped and by it she should be left without allies, wounded, unable to endanger anybody while we are getting stronger by uniting in fight, by learning to coordinate.

IT ALL DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE!

Welcome to trying to dissect MMO game mechanics and reconcile with writing logic. Better people have tried and gone mad . . . mad! . . .

Ever count how many White Mantle soldiers died in the War in Kryta? Really hard to do since there are always some spawning in the instanced outdoor areas.

How many times did Countess Crey miraculously get out of confinement after getting arrested caught cold doing what she was doing?

. . . how many times did Lord Nagafen die and STILL survive to be in the sequel to Everquest?

. . . and how the heck do I have eight backpacks?! HOW?!

Tachenon.5270:

Remember the Refugee Child’s Drawing? I still have mine… anyway, what if in the background of that drawing there had been a mysterious (and funny-looking) green person with weird hair…

Which would be weird, since I always thought it was a drawing of “the hero” as a thank-you.

Fringilla Vigo.8594:

So where is “play the game the way you like” choice?

A counter-inquiry.

What exactly do you need the gold for? I mean, there’s a lot of stuff which can be expensive, or IS expensive (seriously, cultural armor, WTF?) but what else is there to spend it on?

Right now the only thing to spend large amounts of gold on are either unnecessary power boosts or dressing up your characters in certain appearances of gear.

Gandarel.5091:

And yes, I hate that dragons replaced the lore of GW2 and with new writers slowly rewriting GW1’s lore to be all about dragons…

Trouble is that GW1 was all about the humans, their Gods, and the cosmology which existed around these things.

I mean, once you reach Gotterdammerung . . . you’re really out of story to tell concerning gods, aren’t you?

Knote.2904:

The Happening : It’s happening.

Calling it now, this is the sylvari master plan for Tyria.

The only issue I see with leaving the mobs is sometimes an event will start right on top of one just finished or just left. And the old mobs are still there if nobody killed them off (for most events).

This can turn into a “charlie foxtrot” (you figure it out, I’m not saying it) rather fast for smaller groups who have no idea what they’re walking into.

Gizmo.8623:

Find me a group (and here we’ve got 2) that will be willing to die by the thousands just to create chaos…
Besides if we want this chaos to stop, heroes should stop going into the wilderness hunting teleporting groups which do nothing at all.
No big deal. If they attack a settlement, there are asura gates – any army can teleport there in a second and defeat threat.

Still my question stands – What is it all about?

Right now? The best we can conclude is that it is all about causing chaos and running people ragged chasing them down.

Astralporing.1957:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

(hey, there’s another villain “cuz I’m evil” sue – Shiro Tagachi).

Did you actually play through the campaign looking at the cinematics? He really wasn’t the (standard nowadays) “for the lulz” evil type. All his action – though undeniably very evil – had a very straithforward and easily understandable motivation.
He just wanted to live and he had no problem with resorting to mass murder to get what he wanted (which is also understandable, as being good at killing was his primary characteristic, and the reason why he ended as the Emperor’s bodyguard in the first place).
He wasn’t a complicated character, but he was believable.
Scarlet isn’t.

I did play through the campaign, but bear with me . . .

We didn’t understand a lot of that until roughly halfway through. We knew shortly off Shing Jea things were going on but there was an apparent . . . how to put this . . . there was an apparent lack of plan with the Afflicted other than to stir the pot. It’s not until we understand that Shiro needs to get to the Emperor, and why, things start falling into place.

But considering he is, indeed, immortal and untouchable for MOST of Factions . . . and doesn’t really lose any encounters with the players’ party? Added to the complete wealth of martial prowess? He could have a case made to be as much a villain sue.

I don’t make the case seriously in fact Shiro and how his history exists is the one thing I really like about the Factions storyline. I do this to bring up a point, though, and please try this experiment.

Play through Factions, and disregard the flashback cinematics letting you see into what went on with Shiro’s past. Now tell me you understand as well as you would have with them.

Scarlet badly needs something to ground her in the future, if the aim is to have her be more rounded.

Lokheit.7943:

“Rest” from this game. That’s a big problem. A game should be what you do to rest from work, not more work that you need to rest from.

Right, I agree. But three thoughts come to mind on that sentence, even though I agree with it.

- It’s really the responsibility of the player not to burn themselves out on the game. And it goes for any game, not just this one. Even the best things can become boring or unwanted over time if you have it often enough.

- There’s a difference between a game you play just to rest from work, and a game you play to be engaged. They can, in fact, be the same game. I use Minecraft as an example if only because some days I feel like just zoning out with some music and going strip mining for diamonds. Others I want to try my hand at architecture. They don’t often mix.

- You really do need to “rest” from this game, because continuous and intense play periods happen to trip that wonderful Diminishing Returns and I think it’s only by “taking time off” you start to clear from it. I’ve played three hours a night (non-consecutively) for the last three days on invasions. Why non-consecutive? My PC needs a break from the workout. I’ve hit DR, very notably within 30 minutes of starting tonight.

(I’m not going to discuss Diminishing Returns, other to say some actual warning of when you’re coming up on it would be nice, as well as some way of knowing what you have to do to recover from it. And I understand at least two arguments against warnings or announcements of such.)

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I get the impression that GW2’s writers just aren’t very good at writing full complex characters.

I’m not so sure about that. We did get Vanguard Gwen, who was a bit more than “one note” for all the crap I give her, though some of that showed up in Guild Wars Beyond.

What I think is they just, as I said earlier, aim lower to be sure they hit the mark they want. Not shooting for something profound, just trying to be entertaining. That’s hard enough to do.

Namica.2951:

Advent Leader.1083:

Something that probably makes them limit the kind of stuff they need to show ingame is a.) they have to export to countries that have stringent rulings on some subjects and b.) they’re limited by law on their ESRB rating, which is surprisingly a T.

In any case, that’s just my 2c.

Half decent characters aren’t something reserved for M and above.

Worth pointing out, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan is rated PG (a fact which surprises the heck out of me every time I go to be sure of it). So is most of Disney’s fare and there’s better than half-decent villains in there (despite the denigration of “Disney villain”).

And that includes “Gargoyles”.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Gizmo.8623:

After reading all this I think that my younger sister could provide better story sitting on a toilet on monday morning still without coffee. God, month after month there’s not enough story for one full sentence.

This content I’d describe as: “Scarlet (who?) invade.”
Former ones: “Molten Alliance destroys signposts, heroes repair.”
“People on new island, where dangerous creatures attack (surprise!).”
“Balloons for unimportant people.”

…

LOL created by kids, made for kids.

I’d LIKE to think I could come up with better, but I’ve gone back objectively and looked over four of my tabletop campaigns.

I really CAN’T.

Making a really good story for a game is harder than it looks

Sieg.8439:

WhiteFox.9432:

I “like” her. I admit it. So there.
She has totally lost it. Totally. I don’t need a super villain who says: “All your realm shall belong to me, you fools!” It’s been done before in plenty of games.
So has the seducing seductress. And the cool macho. Or the old dark and sinister caped wanderer.

She lost it, it’s that simple. And we all know how crazy pure geniuses can get. Nutty professors ftw! Unless they turn evil, like Scarlet.
And it’s kinda scary, because we don’t know what she’ll do when she really gets mad. There are nu rules, no boundaries, nothing to crazy.

Good lord, just stop. >>

Manuhell.2759:

Now we just need an alliance between her and Mad King Thorn for Halloween. Oh, that would be fun.

No. The Mad King is madness done well. Scarlet is just another generic, “crazy” character.

So to speak?

So was the Mad King back in the day. It was complete lunacy one day out of the year and nobody minded it then. Everything about that holiday was cartoonish and it wasn’t until the recent “Mad King’s Shadow” where he became instead more sinister in cast with the method of his reveal.

ThiBash.5634:

It seems to me that the answer would be in giving the Living Story a 3-week rotation. That would give the staff time to polish up those loose ends we constantly seem to fret about, while destressing the players who feel constantly rushed into having to complete stuff OR ELSE!

Basically, even though it may sound very hippy, the game could benefit greatly from a deep, relaxing breath.

I don’t think it would help people hate things less, I just think we’d hear about it less often.

Namica.2951:

If you don’t know about Shiro’s motivation, and how things went down in that. Who tricked him, how the deception worked, how the the Emperor only reassured him of the deceiver being right. Then you weren’t paying attention at all.

I know about his motivation, and I know how and what his goal eventually is. But, you see, he has a lot of extra stuff he is doing in the path which likewise doesn’t make any sense. He starts the Affliction, and sets them loose but it seems he is more than capable of going to the palace in his spirit form and dealing with it from the start. He plows through just about everything and is only stopped by becoming flesh and blood . . . and even then it’s a big cheat since he still has access to quite a few supernatural powers he probably shouldn’t have.

It’s relatively simple to paint this slightly differently and have Scarlet. Shiro’s behavior is not insanity for the sake of insanity, it is enraged revenge but the two behaviors are rather similar in result. And I like both Shiro and Scarlet as antagonists – Shiro got what he wanted, and Scarlet is entertaining for me to watch at work. But Shiro had more story as to “why”, and Scarlet apparently does too (which we haven’t seen yet).

And yes, my view of Prophecies is extremely opinionated (I will cop to that rather than argue it isn’t), much like a lot of criticism of Guild Wars 2. The point stands – neither story is perfect or great, and have areas in which they is lacking. Most times, it’s not the voice acting. (MOST times. Rurik, Trahearne, Togo . . . )

Namica.2951:

The difference is, GW1 had consistently good writing. You always had reason to believe that the next leg of the arc would be good. You expected connections.

Hahaha. No.

Prophecies didn’t have consistently good writing, and all I have to do is remember Prince Rurik’s contribution to chatter during “The Ruins of Surmia” to point out what I mean. Beyond that, the White Mantle/Shining Blade bits weren’t really good until late, and only really shone in “War in Kryta”.

Almost all of the good writing I remember out of Prophecies came post-campaign. Which means it was added after it shipped. Sorrow’s Furnace was really good, but it wasn’t initially there. And I may knock Factions for being completely predictable and by-the-numbers, but it was at least entertaining (hey, there’s another villain “cuz I’m evil” sue – Shiro Tagachi).

Nightfall, I won’t get into because I’m probably the only person who saw the Kormir Ascension and went “I like having a goddess owe me one” instead of “but it should have been meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”.

Eye of the North was uneven with the burden of introducing two new races and reworking the charr amidst the trouble of handling its own plot. Good news is it shuffled off the “meet the races” into side quests instead of forcing you to do them to advance.

Guild Wars 2 is average on story. It’s not as horrible as people say it is (as a whole) nor is it “the most awesome story evar”. It’s cliched, it’s unevenly paced, and character introductions for the important NPCs are handled poorly; this is something which has persisted into the Living Story (save for Braham and Rox, who have the benefit as starting as “nobodies” we get to watch become somewhat-kinda-useful).

That’s the big weakness in the GW2 story – a lot of things aren’t properly telegraphed in advance. But, as I said before . . . that was also a problem with almost all of GW1.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Which game is it copying, Nintendo Land and Cooking Mama?

Didnt u hear? SAB is making a comeback for the people too cheap to buy Minecraft.

SAB is only barely like Minecraft in the graphics department. Good effort though, C+ for the attempt.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Winds.3087:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Braham? A ‘sue’? Oh I gotta hear this one . . .

Eirsson that doesn’t even look like Eir?

I’m more surprised that Eir has a son and double surprised that he looks like that. :P

Eirsson means he’s Eir’s son. That’s all, and we covered this WAY long ago; as told to us and implied, norn culture is set up so you are expected to make your own glory rather than ride that of your parents. Which is what Braham is attempting to do, taking the opportunities he does.

The surprise was there were no indication, whether in book or lore, that Eir had a son until he popped out of nowhere.

And I know what “Eirsson” means; and possibly there’s also an “Eirsdottir” somewhere too that will suddenly popped out of nowhere…Eir’s a follower of the wolf after all.

What does follower of wolf have to do with anything? :P

Konig Des Todes.2086:

On question three: Southsun Cove actually existed for a while without anyone knowing about its existence (hard to imagine but true). How old it is, is unknown. Similarly, the karka could have been on that island for much longer than The Lost Shores – e.g., before Zhaitan was defeated, they could have been there. And in fact, it’s implied they were.

I gathered the karka existed as deep-sea threats until they were forced out to Southsun Cove . . . which, given memory . . . didn’t really exist there until Orr rose and mucked up the whole Sea of Sorrows. Or if it did, as a reef lower under the water. It DOES have the appearance of one in places.

daimasei.4091:

Ever hear of the Norn grow hormone?

I heard of it, but I assumed it was a myth, like tier 1 WvW existing. Or noble centaurs.

Remillard.8691:

(Also should be noted that Season 1 of Babylon 5 was considered pretty dry at times at best. Took a year or so for the story to get its sea legs. And this is in an industry that specifically went back 50 years for televised media, and back hundreds of years if you include theater media.)

We also have as examples?

- Seasons 1 & 2 of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” which were nowhere near as good as what followed. Also that last season was almost flat as well.
- Season 3 of Lost had major issues with pacing and plot revelations as well, which is what a lot of the complaints about story in Living Story remind me of.
- Season 1 of Firefly was uneven, but the acting made up for it. The later seasons were much much better. Wait . . .
- The X-Files as a show had so many dangling threads and plot points at one point it was much easier to just sever them and start somewhat fresh in the later seasons.
- Wheel of Time. That is all.

ArenaNet wants us to play as much of the game as possible, in many varieties. WvW, sPvP, PvE, dungeons, fractals, world bosses, invasions, hearts . . .

That’s not the problem, though. The problem is the players by and large gravitating to one type of thing they want to do over others, and players in ALL sections of the game threaten complete boycotts if they don’t get what they want. Often these are mutually exclusive ideas.

Not just that, I’m sure there’s conflicting things they see from what people say they want to do . . . and what data they get of people actually doing those things. I don’t envy them their jobs and as much as friends and family tell me I should get into this business . . . I really think it would drive me to suicide.

Daecollo.9578:

There is no reason to really EXPLORE the world, and nothing listed above gives us a reason to go out and seek hidden areas, treasures…

Everywhere just tells you where to go Zerg… that isn’t incentive, that is just calling everyone to an area to say: DO X.

That isn’t exploring…

There was rarely a reason to explore in Guild Wars 1, aside from the Cartographer title. And that was more a reason to use TexMod to search for scraping points once you hit 99%

I don’t know if Guild Wars 2 as a whole is innovative, but there certainly are parts of it which are improved from previous games’ mechanics. The whole “character instanced resource node” thing is the first one which comes to mind for me. (I always was a big consumer of player crafting since UO hit the table, and it was a pain when someone else got to ore veins before you.)

Besides that? I can’t speak for what’s innovative since after GW1 I avoided “recent” MMOs like the plague. I tried WoW for one day and put it down seeing dozens of weeks of grind ahead JUST to catch up with people I knew . . . who didn’t play all the time when I was available to play with them.

(Note, that’s not a value judgement on WoW; roughly a dozen people I know play it and have enjoyed it. It’s not a value judgement on GW2 over WoW – I haven’t played enough of the latter to make an informed opinion beyond “ohgodnotthisagainitsEverQuestagainandagainandagain”.)

I’m going to need to read this more carefully than I did, but . . .

They’ll probably stick with the two week cycle since they’ve kinda committed to it after Frost and Flame’s slow pacing (for several reasons) made people get on them to be more frequent.

I’m expecting them to get the lead out on their story work now, too. I’m hoping it won’t disappoint . . . but I’m resigned to the fact the forum will STILL be full of disappointment even if the next chapter turns out to be the most awesome fight against Jormag/Bubbles/Primordius/etc.

Penguin.5197:

BobbyStein.2315:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . on a semi-related note? Who is voicing Scarlet Briar?

Tara Strong

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0152839/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

So in other words we got Twilight Sparkle trying to kidnap people and bombing cities :O At least it makes sense now how she could have graduated from the asura colleges in record time:P

About as much sense as it makes Rytlock is awesome – because he’s voiced by Steve Blum. I don’t think I really disliked any character voiced by him I’ve encountered.

Gehenna.3625:

I can only say that their current philosophy fails for me. It doesn’t keep me entertained enough to play this game as a MMO. I play it as a single player RPG that I pick up once or twice a year. If it hadn’t been named Guild Wars I probably wouldn’t have played it at all.

Funny enough, this is somewhat how I played/approached Guild Wars 1 up until I got a great alliance which kept me interested and entertained. Poke myself in now and then like I would with a single player RPG. Occasionally put myself into the PvP, remember I was crap at it, and go back to trying to explore or knock out missions.

. . . and, yes, fully admitting it here. If this hadn’t been made by ArenaNet I probably wouldn’t have looked twice at this game. Guild Wars branding beside the point, I liked what GW1 was enough to give them a shot on their second game (whatever it would turn out to be). I’ll probably give their third game one too (if they make one).

Anymore, I buy games based on my reaction to some cursory research. It’s less for “this looks awesome” and more for “okay, who made this . . . huh, I know that company”. Of course, if it’s an indie game then it’s “let’s pop up part one of a LP and watch to see if I’ll like it”.

Of course, all this reminds me of is how much I miss getting a Tabletop group together :P At least they complained less about grind and more about loot.

Elbegast.6970:

inazuma.7021:

It’s funny how people assume we’ll know everything about the villain in the first chapter, and when we naturally don’t, they call it weak writing. Some people have no patience for storytelling.

Grab a book. Read one sentence every two weeks and then, once read, promptly rip that sentence from the book and throw it into a fire. That’s the problem with storytelling in the Living Story. By the time we have a resolution to a story, we have lost interest or have completely missed key plot points due to their removal from the game.

Well, that and the poor writing. I haven’t seen writing this bad since the Star Wars prequels.

That’s harsh, I was going to say Lost season 3 was a better example . . .

Namica.2951:

The thing is, people have been seeing “deeper meanings behind seemingly unimportant one liners.” since flame and frost.

. . . before that. WAY before that. WAY WAY before that. You should have seen things in Prophecies before anything else was ever put together, let alone the conclusions drawn from the ruined cape which used to be found somewhere ashore in Kryta on launch. Then the Preserved Red Iris in Kourna . . .

Seriously, some of the theories were incredibly . . . well let’s just be nice and say “extremely unlikely”.

Instead we got abunch of shoddy writing that’s being defended with “Oh well, surely it gets better…”

. . . worked for Star Trek: TNG and DS9. Not so much Voyager and Enterprise though, so I’ll take a 50% success rate.

Sarie.1630:

2. “Omg y u so impatient why can’t you wait 2 weeks”

In response:

2. THIS LIVING STORY CHAIN HAS BEEN RUNNING SINCE JANUARY AND WE STILL PRETTY MUCH ONLY KNOW THE NAMES OF SOME OF THE BADDIES.

It also took a hiatus and side-trip for a while off into festivals (and yeah, I was annoyed at that too, I just would sigh and go “wait two weeks, it’ll be over…”) It also dragged like an anchor on the seabed for the first month or two while they worked crap out internally (so I understand) to get the two week cycle moving.

I get you’re running out of patience, or are out of it. I understand not everyone has the patience for writers playing coy with “the answers” (I’m a freaking LOST watcher, for crying out loud) so please don’t accuse me of not getting it.

However.

These last two updates in August have made me rather pleased, and not for the farming options. The Champion loot workover was a good concept (executed with questionable success), the removal of culling actually makes events look more full to me (oh hai SBI zerg! I c u nao!) and the invasion events are fun for me to take part in (if I can hit one).

The story is less consequential to me for a game (most times); if it’s enough to give a flavor to events I play through then I’m okay with it. I blame myself growing up with paper-thin story for the longest time in my games, even in my King’s Quest games. If we get something better in two weeks? Awesome. If not?

Meh, I got a decent game I could play for the game aspect rather than the story. It’ll join Pokemon on that level of entertainment for me.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Winds.3087:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Braham? A ‘sue’? Oh I gotta hear this one . . .

Eirsson that doesn’t even look like Eir?

I’m more surprised that Eir has a son and double surprised that he looks like that. :P

Eirsson means he’s Eir’s son. That’s all, and we covered this WAY long ago; as told to us and implied, norn culture is set up so you are expected to make your own glory rather than ride that of your parents. Which is what Braham is attempting to do, taking the opportunities he does.

It doesn’t hurt he pretty much goes to the Crown Pavilion since Rox (a friend and comrade) asked him to come along. He stayed because it was a great fight The boy is also less useful in a fight except in a support role. (Rox does more, and she’s a ranger . . . a ranger outperforming a guardian.)