Appreciating Nightfall and all of GW **SPOILERS**

First off LAST WARNING ---- SPOILERS ---- for NF and all GW!


So last night I beat Nightfall, the story part of it all anyway. Got through the last battle in the Realm of Torment, endgame, etc.

In playing through the Realm of torment, I realized how much it truely sucks if you've never played GW before and this is your first game. To not understand who the Undead Lich is or to not understand why this guy Shiro Tegaci is harassing you here. Why you have to fight these two guys once more. What really is the true deal with Abbadon and how all 3 games/stories are linked together. If you've never played GW you're at a loss in understanding.

I also noticed certian little things in the game, for instance the play in one of the prices castles about Tria and Rurik, etc.. Going into Crystal Overloo and seeing the path to the Crystal Desert. Having guys there called "Ascension Pilgrims" when alot of people may not know what the hell the Ascension is.

I could just keep going on different things here and there. Sure they're trying to appease to the current fanbase of it all and I think the game is great, but they're also trying to appease to people who are new and want new people to just start off with Nightfall. I dunno, I almost think there should be an little story book that comes with Nightfall to explain what peope might have missed so they understand.

I love Nightfall and beating it and watching it, it has now become my favorite in series, but I just feel that alot of people who don't have all 3 games may not fully appreciate and understnad what's going on at all.

There is an update (not as large as Sorrow's Furnance was) planned for Nightfall that will add some more stuff and ties in to the upper level sunspear / light ranks that you can't get planned.

umm ok, and that has what to do with the topic and what i said?

They probably left them in as teasers so people would buy the other chapters to find out what's out there. It will certainly entice the explorer types.
And if you could please enlighten me(as I don't have nightfall), is there not a form of ascension over there? or do you have to have prophecies or something to be ascended?

Well even though UW and FoW are included in Nightfall, you don't need to be Ascended. It's the same as in Factions, where you have to be Weh No Suh (Closer to the Stars), it's a kind of 'Ascension'.

I don't quite know for sure how to get in UW/FoW when your character is Elonian and not Ascended/Weh No Suh. But I suppose a Lightbringer rank might be needed.

You dont actually ascend in nightfall or factions. The storyline doesnt require it. You spend most of your time leveling on an island before the real storyline begins.

Anyways, I think that its good to have some mystery. Not every bit of the game has to be explained. Like why do we have to know how the lich king attacked before? All we need to know is that he did and that he is doing it again. This is the same with shiro. Also sending nightfall characters to the place of ascension for an elite mission (if thats what happens) its there so that people who played the other games know and the ones that didnt dont have a clue what the difference is. So i see no harm in having it there.

It is a very suttle link to the other games so no harm is done.

<-- Death Omen

well it also ties the Tomb of Primeval kings to abbadon, leaving a lot of unasnwered questions to the new only nightfall players, the new players just have to ask around and soon they will get the earlier chapters, this might even be motivation for them to get the early chapters

I agree with the OP, there is quite an amount of lore that is generated from the two previous chapters and newer players may indeed feel that they are left out of the loop in times described by the OP while playing through NF.

Perhaps a good addition to partly solve this problem would be have things such as books that tell the lore of the world/past chapters or knowledge of skills and tactics in game. And hence this would give an excuse to have a library of some sorts in game where players can spend their free time reading some information ingame. This will also add tremedously to the roleplaying element in the game as well.

Given the fact that they never tried to make the Guild Wars World feel like one world, the library thing might just fly over their heads. Matter Of Fact, their current business model almost keeps them from doing it entirely because it depends on people buying the chapters. Giving away the full stories about past chapters might not entice new players to go back and buy past chapters to experience the storylines.

Guild Wars' 3 chapters are all connected. By their main evil guy, of whom was hidden..at least to me. Abaddon the god behind it all, so yeah if you really want to get into the story, you have to get all 3 and play Prophecies first.

Well, if I played Nightfall as my first GW game, I guess I would have cared very little about those minor references. I would probably have missed them entirely in all the other stuff.

But I have on the other side never demanded that all loose ends should be tied up in the last pages of a book. I did not lay sleepless wondering about what happened to Gwen, what the ancient weapon does in the dessert or why there is a lonely admiral on the beach in FoW. Unsolved mysteries add depth to a story, inmho. But we are all different.

Regards,
Cloudbunny

I would guess it is like when I play quite a few of the Dungeon and Dragon's games. I don't read the novels or play the pen and paper game so I know little of the history/lore.

However, I still really like those games.

They will know that Shiro and the Lich are high level servants (described as generals IIRC) to abaddon. That's all that really matters. Think of it this way - if they had named them "Bob" and "Greg" would you have been confused? No - "Hey look, I got to go kill Bob and Greg, Abaddon's two top generals!". They just would not have had extra back story for people who have played the other games.

Heck, there are still plenty of unknowns in the GuildWars universe for long time players. Yet we still happily go kill them or solve the quests as the quest log says to do. I mean, lets face it, was it confusing the first time you saw a Titan? And, given what you now know it is quite different when you play through prophecies again. Yet, we were not totally confused play prophecies without having gone through Nightfall. Same here.

When and if it comes time for chapter 4, I sincerely hope they don't pull something similar to the NF plot. Using the endgames from factions/proph was very, very, very lacking in creativity. (imo at least, considering there's always somebody bigger and badder behind everything)

Hopefully no more undead armys and Unleasing Gods theme lines in chapter 4. They made a great storyline although Anet more Stumbled onto it rather than giving it much real thought im sure, but they did a good job neither the less. Now we some something different