Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Deleted]

Hahahahaha that's awesome. Even the animals have bobble heads xD

[OmniSkribe]

So I've log in game after a many months of break. Made few runs of different dungeons. And now I have a few questions:

1) There is like zero social evelement in LFD. Even in WoW LFR people write someting like "Hello". Is this a majority, or i was just unlucky to join rude groups?
2) Almost every boss is "stay in corner/behind column and spam AOE", no dodge, no point to kite etc. So is this how this game now?

[zed zebes]

That's what the dungeon community is like. If they can't cheapen the encounter then they won't run the dungeon.

[Lane]

It was bad, worse than living story, especially coming of the back of the excellent Wrath.

I really loved Wrath. I thought Blizzard had perfected WoW (at the time) with that expansion. I still don't know WTF they were thinking with Cata.

[Raeln]

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.

How so? The Jedi Consular storyline leaves you as the "chosen one" - the only one for centuries, if not millennium, that is capable of doing what you do. After finishing the story and moving on to "what is left" - you are right back to what every other MMORPG does at endgame, forcing your character to just be a normal <insert class here>, except you are pitted against "bosses", that are exponentially more powerful than you - in fact, it takes multiple of "you" to take them down. Good thing that wasn't the bad guy in your story.

All of the stories deal with your character doing something incredibly unbelievable/heroic/evil/whatever - then afterwards it's just like, "that's good, here - go raid as a normal Joe now."

Now, I'm not saying that MMORPGs have the capability to write engaging stories that can persist at all - obviously when you have thousands of upon thousands of people playing the same class that we have to realize that our characters are not a central figure to the story; however, I think that stories should be written to avoid our characters being some crazy unique superhero so that they don't just end up breaking outside of that specific story arc.

TOR's class stories, while would have been awesome for a single player game, absolutely sucked at promoting any kind of a continuing story in TOR as a whole.

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I really loved Wrath. I thought Blizzard had perfected WoW (at the time) with that expansion. I still don't know WTF they were thinking with Cata.

Wrath was good. The issue was people's expectations - Wrath was the end to the Warcraft 3 story arc about the Lich King. To some people that is simply the climax of the Warcraft story. Wrath was also written to present the Lich King as some type of comic book villian - he's always showing up and getting the upper hand, but after some monologue - lets you go. It was also something Blizzard acknowledged and tried to do differently in Cata.

Cata was a bunch of bad management calls from just about everyone with the power to steer game development. Any other MMORPG franchise that wasn't Blizzard would have been filing for bankruptcy after all those chained blunders. They still haven't dug themselves out from under their "time bubble" issue.

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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.

I agree - seems like when writers run out of ideas, there's always "time" to play with. My guess is some of the writers wanted to "Fringe" it up with alternate realities in WoD. I had expected to go to Azeroth's moons before they resorted to "time and alternate realities", bleh.

I am curious how many easter eggs they will stuff in that calls back to Fringe though.

[Fencers]

After finishing the story and moving on to "what is left" - you are right back to what every other MMORPG does at endgame, forcing your character to just be a normal <insert class here>, except you are pitted against "bosses", that are exponentially more powerful than you - in fact, it takes multiple of "you" to take them down. Good thing that wasn't the bad guy in your story.

This is somewhat off-topic, But your character is not the only exceptional person in the game's lore. There are multiples of "you". The only real exclusivity are like endpoint- you slay the emperor, you are Darth Nox, etc.

However, in the endgame it is mentioned that the player characters are certainly not "average joes". PCs are the most remarkable individuals the galaxy has to offer at that point- taking on challenges too big, dangerous or complex for the military of the Republic and Empire- who do try to get involved & fail, mind you.

The endpoints are logically inconsistent, of course. How could two Heroes of Tython slay the same Emperor with the same unique set of companions? That is up to suspension of disbelief (which is fine) but fails in that it has no gameplay hook. That part is a "problem". The methodology for supporting the gameplay and narrative are not.

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I think in part the mmo medium is really hard to have a good consistent story.

Can you name any single player games which use a specific narrative style in service of gameplay?

I want to get a feel for where you are coming from. Not saying there are nonesuch.

[Lane]

Wrath was good. The issue was people's expectations - Wrath was the end to the Warcraft 3 story arc about the Lich King. To some people that is simply the climax of the Warcraft story. Wrath was also written to present the Lich King as some type of comic book villian - he's always showing up and getting the upper hand, but after some monologue - lets you go. It was also something Blizzard acknowledged and tried to do differently in Cata.

I didn't go into Wrath with high expectations because I did not care about Arthas at all. What I found were a ton of other stories, which while most tied into the Lich King somehow each were able to stand on their own sufficiently. Vyrkul, titans, dwarves, trolls (I still <3 Drakuru), old gods, a failed world tree, even dragons (poor Keristrasza ;_; ). Storm Peaks was the most epic zone ever.

WoD is semi-tempting solely because I've always wanted to see pre-destruction Draenor.

[nevermore]

What I found were a ton of other stories, which while most tied into the Lich King somehow each were able to stand on their own sufficiently. Vyrkul, titans, dwarves, trolls (I still <3 Drakuru), old gods, a failed world tree, even dragons (poor Keristrasza ;_; ). Storm Peaks was the most epic zone ever.

100% agree, WotLK, especially Storm Peaks with Ulduar as the cherry on top was the pinnacle of WoW's lore/storytelling. I usually don't care too much about lore, but during WotLK I found myself spending hours on wowpedia just reading up on random stuff.

[carnifex2005]

100% agree, WotLK, especially Storm Peaks with Ulduar as the cherry on top was the pinnacle of WoW's lore/storytelling. I usually don't care too much about lore, but during WotLK I found myself spending hours on wowpedia just reading up on random stuff.

Also agree. Wrath truly was the peak of WoW. I loved that expansion's lore and storytelling. I didn't care about it in BC or in Cata.

[Valeron]

wrath had the advantage of using the Arthas storyline. I didn't play the next two xpacs so I can't tell you the quality of the story but I imagine they had to use brand new material for it.

[Svifnymr]

wrath had the advantage of using the Arthas storyline. I didn't play the next two xpacs so I can't tell you the quality of the story but I imagine they had to use brand new material for it.

It wasn't just Arthas though. I mean, sure Yog was involved with Arthas, but he didn't need to be for the entire Ulduar/ Stormpeaks storyline to run. Same with the Dragon plotlines.

[worprz]

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.

I agree, I don't think many games in general have good stories either lol. I have no idea why I like mmos so much lol.

[Lazuli]

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.

[Achaman]

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.

WoW does have ingame books.. infact theres an achievement to find them all

[Deleted]

WoW does have ingame books.. infact theres an achievement to find them all

GW2 has books as well http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Book

[Meledelion]

he's not talking about ingame books...

[draykorinee]

he's not talking about ingame books...

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

I dunno, looks like it.

[Meledelion]

ha, completely read over the second paragraph. I thought he was talking about the destinies edge stuffs.

I never liked the "let's put it in a book in a game" way of explaining things. It's lazy and doesn't read well. Read 3lines, "flip page", read another 3lines,...

[Cattleya]

I dunno, looks like it.

I believe the keyword there was "everything".

[Lazuli]

Uh, the books in WoW are not like that. Some of them are very long and none are like GW2's wannabe bullshit 3 sentences.

And have none of you read a book in an elder scrolls game? Clearly not... they are long as fuck and filled with text.

WoW does have ingame books.. infact theres an achievement to find them all

I know it has books but they barely scratch the surface. Probably around 80% lore is missing from ingame. I've read all RL books for WoW and all wiki lore.