Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Valeron]

I don't think that's fair. I've been playing MMOs since (technically) Asheron's Call and LS is far and beyond the worst writing I've ever been subjected to in a game. Worse than Cataclysm (though only barely), which is saying something.

probably isn't fair and I apologize but I just don't hold mmo writing in high esteem.

[Rapti]

As much as I love WvW I am starving for new zones that I could complete from 0, no new events in current ones, just like 2-3 extra zones I could travel and experience.
I still love the game (tough way less time to actually play it), but Id want to have some new zones to dick around in - not small instances or phasing or Living Story (tired of current model - only want LA rebuilt).

[Valeron]

I'm assuming that we will get a new zone to play around with whenever we get the new content patch.

[Lane]

I will say that I wanted to like it. I actually did enjoy most of the personal story (even Trahearne :P). Plus, GW2 is generally so devoid of story it was something I was craving to have in the game. It just didn't deliver for me, in fact, it seemed to compound the issue I had with the game's lack of depth by piling on more and more shallow "story" updates, almost like an insult to injury.

I do think they did a good job with Taimi, she's the only character that was good right out of the box and remains so. Rox and Braham, frankly, I think took way too long to develop for characters that had been there from the start. As for Kasmeer and Marjory, I think they're both completely contrived.

[Rapti]

I'm assuming that we will get a new zone to play around with whenever we get the new content patch.

Yeah but Im talking about regular ones, not Karka stuff etc.

@Lane: Tybalt - best character ingame :F.

[Karizee]

I don't think that's fair. I've been playing MMOs since (technically) Asheron's Call and LS is far and beyond the worst writing I've ever been subjected to in a game. Worse than Cataclysm (though only barely), which is saying something.

Cataclysm??? You've got to be joking. All those raids full of bosses that no one had ever even heard of before. Conversations in my guild went like, "Who are these guys and why are we killing them?" "No one knows, kill them anyway."

[Raeln]

Well, engaging can vary person to person. Though The Secret World, Guild Wars 1 and Star Wars The Old Republic are very well written, plotted and acted stories.

It is not to say that a story has to engage or interest everyone equally. However, there are some comparative standards one can point to that do GW2's living and personal story narratives one better. So to speak.

LS "getting better" over time is not really a good thing either. It's kinda not worth respecting actually.

It is amazing what nostalgia seems to do. There was a lot of accusation aimed at TOR about how crappy the class stories were back when they were relevant. Even at that, our characters "accomplished" so much and killed so powerful of foes in their personal story, only to be relegated as yet another cog in a machine in TORs endgame.

[zito]

Oh guys, guess whos back? It is our favorite villain!

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...1uznz/im_back/

[Svifnymr]

I don't think that's fair. I've been playing MMOs since (technically) Asheron's Call and LS is far and beyond the worst writing I've ever been subjected to in a game. Worse than Cataclysm (though only barely), which is saying something.

Wait, wait, wait. So, Deathwing's plan to break everything by flying around randomly sometimes and breaking some stuff, because he was corrupted by an old god at some point, is better than Scarlet forming Alliances to strengthen her forces to wake her dragon master?

The elemental stuff made sense? spending the entire zone of Vashjyr to save the water guy, who then disappears at the end of a dungeon and is never heard from again, that's better?

Now, I'll agree Scarlet had her flaws, but lets not go overboard.

Not at all. I've said before the entirety of LS felt like they went around the office, asked everyone for a 'story' idea that they tossed into a hat, and then picked at random the focus for the next update. It certainly seemed like only when more and more confused players started posting "WTF?" that they brought in this 'super villain' character to magically tie everything together.

I recall a lot of people confused about Canach when we returned to Southsun, because they had completely ignored all the material that he was in before that. Some of the stuff makes sense, some of it doesn't, but the level of knowledge among the player base isn't a great indicator.

[Karizee]

Realistically speaking, I don't expect S2 and beyond to be much better unless they hire different people to do the story/narrative. S1 may have been a "learning experience", and they may be "taking notes" of player feedback, but the end result isn't going to equate to a significantly better experience next time. It might be not quite as poorly written fan fiction, but it'll still be still fan fiction level. At least if they write it in a way that there's humor to be found among the bad it would have some worth, more than it has now anyway.

The writers can come up with and tell great stories, there's no question about that (evidenced by the story blogs and things like this that I linked earlier)

1-The Arch or Nothing
2-Waiting for Reinforcements
3-The Attack Came Early
4-A Beast Covered in Cogs
5-Last Stand at the Trader's Forum

Honeclaw suicide bombing herself into the Aetherblades by turning her flamethrower around and then blowing up her fuel cannister with her pistol - that's gripping stuff and told very eloquently and succintly!

The trick is getting this stuff into the game without static quests or one off events like the opening of Southsun. I'm sure the writers can come up with stuff 100x or 1000x faster than any development can keep up - but the devs can only make so many story instances, cut scenes, voiceovers, etc. Where we saw the big change and improvement in the storytelling was a couple months back when they gave the writers a tool so that they can do stuff directly. That's why all the NPCs have so much more conversation related to the current content now.

It makes a huge difference. As evidenced by Taimi.

[Svifnymr]

It is amazing what nostalgia seems to do. There was a lot of accusation aimed at TOR about how crappy the class stories were back when they were relevant. Even at that, our characters "accomplished" so much and killed so powerful of foes in their personal story, only to be relegated as yet another cog in a machine in TORs endgame.

The class story quest were universally praised and derided, but each person loved and hated different ones. So I figure they're fine.

[Valeron]

Oh guys, guess whos back? It is our favorite villain!

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...1uznz/im_back/

that directs me to U2

[zed zebes]

Anet/dulfy kinda got me with the wiki redesign. I was like "wow, Dulfy got paid.".

[Lane]

Re: Cataclysm

I quit 3 months into the expansion, so most of the things you're referencing either happened after that or I've blocked out the horrible memories. :P Considering how bad the initial writing was it does not surprise me it got worse.

[Fencers]

again, anyone expecting anything above mediocre writing in an mmo is naïve at best and an idiot at worst.

This is kinda faulty. There are excellent examples of narrative and writing in the MMO genre. Even if one game in a genre does something well- that is the standard by which all antecedent genre exercises are held to.

I don't know of any medium of art in which that is not true.

It is amazing what nostalgia seems to do.

I just played SWTOR like, a couple of weeks ago. It's still fantastic writing if a bit slow in plotting. The latter being variable.

Being a cog in the endgame is the logical end of the stories and in service of the gameplay actually. If played past the initial release content of the game a lot of characterization is followed through.

[carnifex2005]

My head is sooooooooooooooooooooooo huge now...

[draykorinee]

Re: Cataclysm

I quit 3 months into the expansion, so most of the things you're referencing either happened after that or I've blocked out the horrible memories. :P Considering how bad the initial writing was it does not surprise me it got worse.

It was bad, worse than living story, especially coming of the back of the excellent Wrath. MoP has been okaaaaaaay, but just okay. WoD has a timehole/timewarp/alternate reality that I always hate, but we'll see.

[carnifex2005]

It was bad, worse than living story, especially coming of the back of the excellent Wrath. MoP has been okaaaaaaay, but just okay. WoD has a timehole/timewarp/alternate reality that I always hate, but we'll see.

Totally agree. I really liked the hard heroics of Cata but that was about it. Soon as they nerfed those I was on the verge of quitting. I finally quit WoW soon as I did the first raid boss of Cata (forget what it was). I was waiting around with my other guildies and thought "God damn, I'm going to be going through this gear grind for another year at least. Fuck this shit, I'm out." I logged out and later gave my 300k gold to a friend. Never again.

[Valeron]

This is kinda faulty. There are excellent examples of narrative and writing in the MMO genre. Even if one game in a genre does something well- that is the standard by which all antecedent genre exercises are held to.

I think in part the mmo medium is really hard to have a good consistent story. I have yet to find an mmo even have as good as writing as even the most mediocre of single player games. We'll just have to agree to disagree here. yeah, my standards are high in this regard but I suppose mmos have different priorities than stellar writing.

with that said, I do like the world building and lore in a lot of mmo worlds but that is separate.

[zed zebes]

Right in the middle of wuvwuv



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0njCQbBLmw