Poll: Which GW2 race has the best story?

[DementedSheep]

The Charr.
I love the Charr.
I'm behind any fantasy race that claims, with some validity, to have killed their gods (especially if their gods were jerks, i.e. most gods). I understand that, in the context of the setting, they killed the demons who set themselves up as gods of the Charr. Still, hark at the rocks on them cats.

And you get to pick which of your childhood friends doesn't die in a battle, and so helps you rebuild your warband (I'm fond of Dinky, Eyurael, and Rheeva).

Things also tend to get interesting once your father gets involved in the story, especially if he is a gladium.

Gladium was what I picked. I think I accidently gave my Charr a really shitty life. Everyone in her warband (ie the people she grown and worked with her entire life) aside from dinky dies. Then she is forced to

Spoiler

fight her own father to the death in the arena so he at least gets an honourable death. All because his legionnaire was being a dick

then she has to

Spoiler

kill and the undead version of Howl, her former legionnaire

Then she joins the order of whispers

Spoiler

becomes friends with Tybalt, who sacrifices himself at claw island

and then she accidently

Spoiler

open fired on her own allies (you get this if you picked dishonour when talking to the pale tree)

At this rate she is going to develop a complex.

 

[NearLifeExperience]

I see a lot of people criticizing the story in GW2, but... I always got the feeling that this was not the selling point for this game? That the game that was selling "Story, story, story!" was that other MMO released around the same time?

GW2's story does its job. It makes the push up to the cap feel less mundane and grindy. You're still doing the overland content in each zone you go, and then doing the odd story-based instance, but there's lulls and diversity and the odd authentically enjoyable bit of narrative. It is guiding you around, showing you fun stuff to do, and then you do that stuff. Which would be fun doing even without any narrative around it.

Is it the holy grail of online storytelling? No, but considering the sheer amount of content they had to write for this game, the quality came out way higher than I ever expected.

People at ANet did an amazing good job with this.

I certainly applaud Anet's unique, if not revolutionary way of combat mechanics, leveling up just by tripping over events feel great and combat is fun and exicting, aside from some slight balance issues and glitches, but luckily Arenanet do their best to smoothen things out.

I gotta hand it to them, these guys really get involved, listen to feedback and know what they're doing.
however
I think they sacrificed on the story aspect on that account.
That it's a generic fantasy tale about dragons attacking is totally something I can live with,
But at least make the player feel connected with the story, I had expected (hoped) for more character depth, personality tweaking. maybe even dialogue options as a last second surprise
I also have a problem with the way dialogue is presented, with the fixed camera angle, poor lighting and the moving drawing in the background. It just looks kinda like a puppet show, really.

Not to mention those really really awkward animation moments in between some dialogues, where NPCs clumpsily faff about, like for instance picking up things by kneeling and rubbing the ground. It reminded me a bit TOO much of GW1, where some animations also seemed rather weird and unnatural, but that was perfectly acceptable for a murmorpurger at that time.

And then there's this whole 'Personality' bullshit :|You can max out a personality by talking to some NPCs, pressing the desired options repeatedly.. and all it does is give you vanity points for your title.. what the hell Anet? :O

In GW1, we had a story mission called Vizunah(?) Square, where two parties could join the fray, both spawning on different points, fighting mobs off, eventually joining in rather epic big waves of mutants. if only 1 party had joined, you had NPCs taking the other side.

This cool concept was also applied in the luxon elite area (The Deep) even better, though I really dreaded the rest of that one.

Why not use this? It was rather cool..
Make story missions accessible for multiple players at any time. 2-5 human players, that are either randomly generated, á la Vinuzah(?), or people that already formed a party. All spawn at different locations in an instance and have to battle their way to eachother, joining up and completing the objectives together. Send NPCs in to cover empty spots.

 

[2xDouble]

Which story? the Personal Story? They're all different story segments, or "tracks". For example, I consider the Norn/"lost a fight" track to be greatly more entertaining than the Sylvari/"shield of the moon" track. Overall, so far, I believe the most fun I've had is with my Asura with her degree in Statics, and my Human joining the Order of Whispers (another big "yay for Tybalt Leftpaw!"). Incidentally, though the events are the same, the Orders stories do vary slightly depending on your race.

I've also noticed, being an altaholic and obsessive public beta-tester, that the stories can intertwine and overlap a lot more than one might believe. For example, listen across the five races' stories for the word "Grizwhirl". It's mentioned in at least three tracks, and features majorly in at least one, but each adds slightly different pieces to the puzzle: where did it come from, who created it, how did those people obtain it, what did they do with it, etc... Bits and pieces like this occur all over the entire story (and I do mean all of it/them). Intricacy like this just doesn't present itself with single, or even consecutive, playthroughs. It's quite an intriguing puzzle, really.

 

[2xDouble]

Make story missions accessible for multiple players at any time.

They are. Quite easily, in fact.

 

[FalloutJack]

My answer is simiply determined upon the race I prefer. I love the Charr, so they're the best to me.

 

[dyre]

snip

I'm beginning to think you're deliberately misreading half the things I say. I never said GW1 was morally ambiguous; I said morally ambiguity isn't the end-all of good storytelling, and GW2 sucks at it anyway. Also, I already admitted that I'm probably looking at GW1 more fondly than it actually deserves thanks to nostalgia; I just can't understand why you're defending all the poor writing in GW2.

Regarding heroes not starting their careers by killing Cthulhu, of course they don't. But it's ridiculous to dedicate what basically amounts to the first third of the story talking about all the minor, and more importantly, inconsequential crap the hero does before he becomes a hero. Generally, games dedicate a few missions to it, or summarize the important bits that happened before in a cutscene or character bio. I believe in GW1, it's just a matter of a few intro quests, and then basically a "you worked your way into the Prince's trust in the months/years following the searing" sort of thing. I'd expect to spend a few missions as a rookie, and to spend those missions doing things important to my development from being a rookie to becoming a hero. Not just random, irrelevant crap for the first thirty hours of the game.

Regarding the alleged massacre of Charr by the humans, I don't think that was mentioned in GW2 either. Being pushed out doesn't always mean being slaughtered.

And on moral ambiguity. It's not simply a matter of people having motivations; it's a matter of people having motivations you can sympathize with. The litmus test is that you actually regret having to kill those people in a game, and wish you could work with them to address their legitimate grievances. The Nightmare Court may have motivations (rejection of the code of ethics that the Sylvari adopted, iirc), but it's not morally ambiguous when a group decides to turn to torturing all their victims for an agenda. It's just evil. Same goes with the Inquest.

I would almost make an exception on the centaurs, as they obviously have legitimate grievances and they haven't resorted to too many atrocities. Even some humans seem to be vaguely aware that they displaced the centaur sometime in the past. Unfortunately, all the quests are extremely black and white, with each one basically being "those evil centaur are at it again. Let's kill them!" Not one of them involves maybe bearing an olive branch and trying to negotiate a partition of land. The Sylvari code may have been written by a centaur, but the game presents not a single peaceful centaur in any quest. It's all just straight up killing the enemy. And that's what I mean by surface morally ambiguity. When a game gives lip service to a "grey conflict," and makes no effort to build on it. Which is really kind of tragic because with the new dialogue system, they could have done a LOT to make the game genuinely morally ambiguous.

Anyway, PM me if you have a reply. This thread seems to have run its course.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I'm beginning to think you're deliberately misreading half the things I say. I never said GW1 was morally ambiguous; I said morally ambiguity isn't the end-all of good storytelling, and GW2 sucks at it anyway. Also, I already admitted that I'm probably looking at GW1 more fondly than it actually deserves thanks to nostalgia; I just can't understand why you're defending all the poor writing in GW2.

Regarding heroes not starting their careers by killing Cthulhu, of course they don't. But it's ridiculous to dedicate what basically amounts to the first third of the story talking about all the minor, and more importantly, inconsequential crap the hero does before he becomes a hero. Generally, games dedicate a few missions to it, or summarize the important bits that happened before in a cutscene or character bio. I believe in GW1, it's just a matter of a few intro quests, and then basically a "you worked your way into the Prince's trust in the months/years following the searing" sort of thing. I'd expect to spend a few missions as a rookie, and to spend those missions doing things important to my development from being a rookie to becoming a hero. Not just random, irrelevant crap for the first thirty hours of the game.

Regarding the alleged massacre of Charr by the humans, I don't think that was mentioned in GW2 either. Being pushed out doesn't always mean being slaughtered.

And on moral ambiguity. It's not simply a matter of people having motivations; it's a matter of people having motivations you can sympathize with. The litmus test is that you actually regret having to kill those people in a game, and wish you could work with them to address their legitimate grievances. The Nightmare Court may have motivations (rejection of the code of ethics that the Sylvari adopted, iirc), but it's not morally ambiguous when a group decides to turn to torturing all their victims for an agenda. It's just evil. Same goes with the Inquest.

I would almost make an exception on the centaurs, as they obviously have legitimate grievances and they haven't resorted to too many atrocities. Even some humans seem to be vaguely aware that they displaced the centaur sometime in the past. Unfortunately, all the quests are extremely black and white, with each one basically being "those evil centaur are at it again. Let's kill them!" Not one of them involves maybe bearing an olive branch and trying to negotiate a partition of land. The Sylvari code may have been written by a centaur, but the game presents not a single peaceful centaur in any quest. It's all just straight up killing the enemy. And that's what I mean by surface morally ambiguity. When a game gives lip service to a "grey conflict," and makes no effort to build on it. Which is really kind of tragic because with the new dialogue system, they could have done a LOT to make the game genuinely morally ambiguous.

Anyway, PM me if you have a reply. This thread seems to have run its course.

I agree with most of this wholeheartedly, with the possible exception of the "inconsequential crap". I actually quite like that element in games, at least when it's done well. Particularly in an MMO, where you're settling in for an EXTREMELY long "narrative", I see no reason to blow past any stage of your journey.

I think this is doubly true in GW2, compounded by the fact that the 1-30 missions appear to have received the most development time and QA attention, and are by order of magnitude more interesting/satisfying than the more "heroic" stuff post 50. I found some of my early missions with my characters fairly memorable, despite the often questionable voice acting and stilted story telling. The only thing I can really remember about the post 50 story was how badly I wanted to kill Trahearne and leave his hijacking corpse flowering in a dark alley.

 

[dyre]

I agree with most of this wholeheartedly, with the possible exception of the "inconsequential crap". I actually quite like that element in games, at least when it's done well. Particularly in an MMO, where you're settling in for an EXTREMELY long "narrative", I see no reason to blow past any stage of your journey.

I think this is doubly true in GW2, compounded by the fact that the 1-30 missions appear to have received the most development time and QA attention, and are by order of magnitude more interesting/satisfying than the more "heroic" stuff post 50. I found some of my early missions with my characters fairly memorable, despite the often questionable voice acting and stilted story telling. The only thing I can really remember about the post 50 story was how badly I wanted to kill Trahearne and leave his hijacking corpse flowering in a dark alley.

Hmm, I do remember enjoying the ride through my early levels my first time playing, but I think it was partly due to my rose-tinted hype glasses at the time (sometimes when I go into something believing it to be awesome, it takes me awhile before I realize it's not), and partly because I was expecting all that rookie stuff to develop into an epic journey. When it turned out that the main story became some mediocre sideshow to do between every few levels, I couldn't really enjoy any of the other personal stories nearly as much when I made new characters, because I knew there was nothing to come out of it. Still, your mileage may vary.

And yes, Trahearne should consider himself lucky that GW2 doesn't have friendly fire. >:|