Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Valeron]

never thought much of GW1 and WoW's stories, thought they were pretty mediocre. I did like some of the lore though.

[zed zebes]

Nightfall/EotN were somewhat interesting stories, but overall I didn't think to much of WoW or GW's story. Like I've said before, lore and story in MMOs are not natural narrative products. They are merely excuses for more content existing.

[Lane]

Well, I need the "RPG" in my MMORPG. There's really no reason for me to play an MMO without it. It's one of the main reasons I question how much I'll actually like a sandbox MMO as opposed to themepark, but I think Asheron's Call was sandbox? It had story.

As far as gameplay, I did enjoy GW2's map completion, I think it was more fun than the usual method of getting "loremaster" equivalent achievements in other games. However, none of the zones or the NPCs within them meant anything to me. Even whatever attachments I'd formed with the characters in the personal story diminished due to having zero interactivity with them after completing it. (Course, half of them were killed off in the process. :P)

I like caring about what's going on in the world around me and forming emotional bonds to characters, that's what makes an MMO really engaging to me. I didn't even bat an eyelash at LA being destroyed and I wanted Kasmeer and/or Marjory to die. Where were their personal story serial killers there?!

[Valeron]

I agree with wanting that, Lane. But I've stopped trying to find that in an mmo a long time ago.

For all of SWTOR's and TSW great narrative and above average stories (for an mmo), I didn't care at all for any of the characters in those games. Maybe it is just me but the rpg parts of an mmo just don't do it for me.

[zed zebes]

I disagree about the personality and story of the zones. I feel the little people and little areas of Tyria have personality and interest. Be it the children playing pretend in a cave inside Queensdale or opening Oola's old research lab, I feel the open world has a life to it that most MMOs fail at creating.

It's the big main story where GW2 falls apart. Even in your Personal Story, the compartmentalized racial story at the start is far stronger than the greater dragon/world story.

[Fencers]

Almost every major MMO is an MMORPG. RPG are not necessarily story driven- they can be role, Role and/or roll playing games just the same.

[hrugner]

I disagree about the personality and story of the zones. I feel the little people and little areas of Tyria have personality and interest. Be it the children playing pretend in a cave inside Queensdale or opening Oola's old research lab, I feel the open world has a life to it that most MMOs fail at creating.

It's the big main story where GW2 falls apart. Even in your Personal Story, the compartmentalized racial story at the start is far stronger than the greater dragon/world story.

I agree with this completely. I'm not sure what changed between the starting player stories, which are a bit of good fun mixed into the main thrust of the plot; but they really need to work that back in.

If I had to guess, I'd say the living story wasn't planned as having a coherent plot from the beginning, and the main villain plot was developed to string it all together. Hopefully with the next season they'll shape that up a bit. Maybe they should have their authors sit down and watch some Upright Citizen's Brigade to get a good idea of how to inject compartmentalized plot from one section of the story into another while letting the main thrust of the story develop more organically.

[worprz]

GW1 and WoW have amazing stories, but you have to buy books or read wiki's to get any of the interesting lore. Well, most of it anyway.

I wish MMO's would be more like the elder scrolls and just have everything in-game via books/journals mostly.

GW2 story is not interesting to me at all, not even in the slightest. Makes me so sad for this game.. I never feel engaged when in pve.

I'm still waiting for relevant lore figures to appear that I care about such as palawa joko, shiro, glint(rip in peace) or her child which should still be alive and btw may even have the power his/her mom did to hide our presence from the elder dragons. Many many other stories which would be a billion times better than what we have are just sitting on the backburner, and why? I have no clue. Oh and cantha.. period. Everything about that place is amazing.

I wouldn't mind seeing more of lore books laying around. Personally though I would like to see a lot more.. I don't even know what to call it, cinematic story? I feel like in mmos you don't really care for the characters. For example when we thought Marjory was dead I didn't really care lol. However in games like Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite you care when the characters get hurt or are in danger.

I already like the lore of GW2, but if arenanet is going to stick with the living story I hope they get more cinematic. And not just cutscenes, interactive cutscenes would be nice too. I would also like to see a scene where you have to escape from a building that is about to be destroyed and actually be punished for going too slow. Tower of Nightmares had something like this, but if you stayed inside it just kicked you out and played the cinematic anyway.

[nevermore]

they can be role, Role and/or roll playing games just the same.

Could you explain what you mean by this? (just curious, as I'm unsure)

[Fencers]

Could you explain what you mean by this? (just curious, as I'm unsure)

Its the degree of emphasis that the R stands for the umbrella term of Role Playing Game. Gygax himself came up with the distinction.

Essentially, "RPGs" may emphasize Role in various ways.

For example;
Role, or sometimes formatted as Role, the player assumed the identity of a character in an effort to deliver gameplay through the device of acting as a character in a narrative or story. In this scenario gameplay is driven expressly by the player making choices under the assumption one is acting as the character.

The definition is as: Role; a part played by an actor.

A lower case R is used in "role" for games that stress player(s) participating in or as a particular function(s) in the play system. Such as being or serving as a "tank", "healer" or in more expanded systems, "controller", "striker", "pipsqueak", etc. It is often the case under accompanying play systems that the gameplay is driven and accomplished by the particular assemblage of roles- though an ensemble is not strictly required.

When "role" is used in this phrasing it is as in the definition: Role; a part that someone or something has in a particular activity or situation

The term "roll" was somewhat debased by Gygax. And is wider seen and associated with the practice of rolling dice in play systems that had an emphasis on numbers. Thus the term came to be used in a vulgar sense as roll with regard to statistical or mathematically driven gameplay. Such as "roll for initiative" or "roll to hit" in which those actions are no longer determinate by character assumption (Role) or by particular function (role).

An RPG can comprise all of the above too.

Genres and language are fluid.

[Karizee]

Tomorrow's Ready Up will cover all things Megaserver with Mr. Colin Johanson himself.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...aservers-more/

[Scyth]

Got a quick question. I'll be going to Hong Kong for the summer and I'm looking to move from a European server to an NA one since I presume it might be a bit laggy if I stay on EU. Can anyone tell me which servers have a good Oceanic presence as they are more or less on the same time-zone as HK. I'm considering SoS as I read they have a strong Oceanic base, but doesn't hurt to ask for more information.

[zed zebes]

Any of the top two or three WvWvW ranked NA servers should have a good oceanic presence. SoS should as well.

The Chinese version of the game will soon be going into open beta as well, but that will be a slightly different business model due to Chinese laws. It will also have a separate Black Lion Trading Database from the Euro/NA one. For that reason, I am worried that joining the Chinese version may separate any existing Chinese players from their current friends. We probably won't know how this plays out in detail until Chinese launch

[Scyth]

I believe the Chinese version will be on a separate server altogether, so they will only play with other Chinese people. But from what I've read it is possible to play without problems from HK so I should be fine, I'm definitely not buying a new game and losing all my progress!

Anyway, cheers for that. I was sure the top 3 have a good presence so I'll see which one I'll go for.

[Gray_Matter]

I have never been one for stories. I usually skip the quest texts. The GW2 story line wasn't bad for me. Dragged on a bit over time, especially if you are doing your X alt. My daughters, however, loved it. They tried all of the combinations, etc. Their beef with the game. Leveling to max level takes far too long and they would love it if it didn't even exist and secondly, mounts. Collecting different mounts and clothes is something they love to do. They can't equip half of the clothes because they are not max level and we know that unfortunately mounts are not going to be added to GW2. Housing would probably also get them to start playing again.

[Black Rider]

Any news on new release?

[Karizee]

Any news on new release?

April 15th

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-ga...feature-packs/

[carnifex2005]

Interesting chart showing the average revenue per user for F2P games. GW2 was at #3.

[Deleted]

Slight problem with that image.
All of the games are free to play, except for gw2, which is buy to play

[zed zebes]

SuperData groups games with a very loose definition. I am also not sure where they get their user numbers from either.