Does Anet need to keep upping the ante?

I don't mind the whole "saving the world" kind of plot. I think the journey is more important than the end, anyway. Some of the quests in the Desolation and RoT were pretty fun for me.

That said, defeating a god? Maybe, if there was a way to make them mortal or something. But seriously, just walking up to a god and killing him with the same skills you use to kill unruly plants is a little stupid. Especially when you're just a group of poorly equipped mortals, most with stupid AI (hello henchies!). What's the point of having "gods" if mortals can just walk up and kill them? And find it easier than killing many mortal monsters...

It reminds me of a fantasy story I once read... it's apparently quite popular but it was the dumbest series I've ever read.

And as my characters did most of the work, I think they deserve to be made gods, not someone who helped cause the mess in the first place and did nothing to help.

Guild Wars' stories are pretty woeful. Whomever is writing them is probably an engineer doing it on the side, in addition to modeling or coding or something. I can't see an actual college graduate with a degree in creative writing penning something as inane as the Nightfall plot.

Prophecies had some nice ideas behind it, but it was fairly cliche and trite. I liked the idea of the Charr invasion, but it wasn't touched upon any further than just pointing out that there's a war going on. Eye of the North will elaborate more on it, so that will at least make Prophecies seem more bearable in hindsight. I remember pushing my PvE characters through Prophecies before Factions came out, and finding myself literally hating the characters and the storyline.

Factions gets some points for trying to elaborate on Shiro's state of mind. Good stories typically aren't about events, they're about people. Empathizing with the characters is a vital component to having the viewer or reader wanting to see what happens next. Guild Wars as a whole rarely does this. I believe Shiro is the only character I have ever seen have any sort of internal conflict, and he's the only person in any part of the game with a truly relevant backstory. With everyone else you get their history, but that's all. (I don't care that Devona's father was an important man. Did she catch him having an affair? Was she a victim of incest? Otherwise, it's just worthless filler information, not a story.) The problem with Factions was that the story idea itself was poor. The presentation was acceptable, especially considering the limitations of cinematics in Guild Wars. I laugh every time I see Shiro perform the /moan emote as he magically slides up the stairs to kill the Emperor.

Nightfall was just awful. I couldn't think up a more hackneyed plot, myself. The characters are dull, their backgrounds are uninvolving beyond some slight (VERY slight) romantic tension that doesn't really go anywhere, and that I don't care about... and the overall story is nearly the same storyline I saw in my first text RPG. On a personal note, I hate Kormir. I was actually mad when she fulfilled her "destiny." What a bothersome, tiring woman.

Ultimately, what hurts Guild Wars the most are the cinematics. Visual presentation is very important in an RPG. Dialogue is the most important, but obviously Guild Wars is lacking in that department. (I suppose there's not enough game time to communicate the various conflicts and emotions that are part of most decent stories - some players want to get through the game, not experience virtual Gone With the Wind.) But the cinematics are just stock emotes strung together with often poorly-scripted movements and at times, woefully bad voiceover acting. Characters can't move in any way beyond animations players can perform, they can't make facial expressions, and they even break suspension of disbelief further by having weapons vanish when they perform animations. Guild Wars just has it bad when it comes to presentation. It has it real bad.

Ultimately, Guild Wars' presentation hurts the stories the most, which isn't really ANet's fault. On the other hand, the stories and characters are so bad that they don't make up for it. I personally cap that off by realizing that I only want to see the story once. When I move my other characters through the linear, funneled storyline just to get them to outposts (to unlock skills for PvP, or get near farming areas), it only makes me dislike the story even more because I'm being forced to "enjoy" it all over again.

All that said, I don't think many people, if any, ever bought Guild Wars for its story or PvE presentation. So ultimately, it doesn't really matter. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth as I try to get to the places in the game I actually enjoy, that's all.

I agree that the "bigger, badder" is getting old.. Although I can see why they did it, it would be nice to have a more local, less far-reaching story.

It's pretty hard to beat fighting a god, so the smaller narratives in GW2 sound cool.

this was outlined (for the most part) in one of the GW2 interviews, I forget which one exactly, but the Dev's basically said they wanted a world with a story built around it, instead of a story with a world built around it (Guild Wars 1) - I think Guild Wars 2 will solve a lot of your complaints about Guild Wars, whether or not it will have a less cheesy story is another matter entirely.

If you think about it, Guild Wars 1 is built around this linear progression of an epic story. The way some outposts represent "events in time" more than physical places, further adds to this point. You can find this stepping-stone system in all 3 of the games, although it's especially noticeable in Prophecies. It's the reason why Guild Wars feels more like Diablo than a traditional MMORPG... there's a set "ending" for each chapter, after which most people start to go "Now what?" - yeah there are tons of things to do after you complete the main story, but your immersion is essentially killed.

I personally have been disappointed by the sub-bosses.... like the Hunger (that giant zombie demon dog from Nightfall) - The cutscenes hype this guy up to be billy-badass, chomping people's heads off and whatnot... then when it comes to actually fighting him, my group of 4 killed him in under a minute... if that.

I really didn't like how Guild wars doesn't really let you play the way you want to play. Most of my characters are anti-heroes, and yet through the linear progression of the story you are forced to save the kingdom and restore the balance, etc. I really don't want to be a hero, it's the "mundane" quests and adventures that really captivate me more than the main quests ever did.

Fantasy: Literature. an imaginative or fanciful work, esp. one dealing with supernatural or unnatural events or characters.

It's a fantasy game.

Why not?!? Seriously, this is supposed to be an RPG, right? There's a reason Assassins and Thiefs were so popular in D&D, and it's not because they were incredibly overpowered (well, maybe high level assassins were with there instant kill ability).

Anet has already established it can do different Instances based on where you are in the story. It would be pretty simple to have a "dark" and "light" storyline, with particular instances reflecting the path most of the players are on.

I hope GW2 gives us a chance to really change the world... for good or bad.

Why not?!? Seriously, this is supposed to be an RPG, right? There's a reason Assassins and Thiefs were so popular in D&D, and it's not because they were incredibly overpowered (well, maybe high level assassins were with their instant kill ability).

Anet has already established it can do different Instances based on where you are in the story. It would be pretty simple to have a "dark" and "light" storyline, with particular instances reflecting the path most of the players are on.

I hope GW2 gives us a chance to really change the world... for good or bad.

Blame Tolkien. The conventions of fantasy RPG's are just the conventions of fantasy literature, and the vast bulk of fantasy literature is emulating the "epic quest" model that Tolkien synthesized from various pre-existing mythologies and legends.

Agreed... Varesh was like a pill bug in the scope of Nightfall, which was a big shame. I would've much preferred ending the civil war. I would also love if the story had more morally gray spots in the story than all morals being black and white. Because honestly, a good story has ambiguity to it.

While the lich was influenced by Abaddon to destroy Orr, the lich was acting on his own, seeking to fulfill the flameseeker prophecies. Abaddon merely used the lich as a tool to weaken the bars of his prison. Abaddon had no intentions for the lich after escaping from his prison. Same goes for Shiro.

I don't think there's any better way to say what you just said.

Yeah, talk about anti-climactic. At least the Vault Dweller in Fallout 1 was cast out for being exposed to the wastes too much (or if you had the bloody mess option, you ****ing owned the Vault overseer). But he established a village... spawning Fallout 2.

And in Fallout 2, your character founds a new brilliant city and rules as elder until his/her death.

... but epic heroes in GW who defeated gods, die of old age... *facepalm*

IT'S OVER 9000!!!!!

And you would think Abaddon, the former god of knowledge and magic, would've realized that some mortals would just be waltzing into his lair and trying to kill him. And then planned some epic trap, where the bridge to Abaddon just falls through, making the heroes die from falling into an abyss. That would've been so freaking hilarious and suckish at the same time.

Actually, Palawa Joko was one of the few characters I found interesting -- he had some personality.

Bolded the important part.

First off, the title for this thread was a little misleading. I thought it would be something about having to compete with the game business or something.

I guess the fact that I haven't really cared for the plot of the games after Factions is some concerning indication. I don't like seeing one-dimensional bad guys. Not to mention that both main bad guys in the past two games, Shiro and Varesh, were pretty much the same.

So yeah, deeper plotlines would be cooler.

And lol at Arcane. Are ya smokin' yet?

I'll give you that. I forgot about him as I wrote that. I can't say he was a deep or intriging character, but he was entertaining. It's hard to believe he ever posed a threat to anyone. He's more of a rascal than a warmongering immortal evil.

Kormir was the worst story element in all of Guildwars bar none.

Hey I do nothing and then the hunger eats my eyes! (you should have finished the job). Then hey we need to go to the Realm of Torment...but I am blind now so instead of even casting spells that do anything for the party I will just follow you around like an idiot. We need to kill Abaddon? Awesome too bad once again Kormir doesn't do a damn thing...oh wait...she becomes a god??? wtf ANET wtf...

Fast forward to Domain of Anguish getting released. Wah Kormir is such a crappy god she can't even keep her own domain in check. No wonder the stupid snakes are on the verge of extinction...you backed the wrong horse idiots our TOONS should have been deified.

and, Order of Whispers >>>>>>>>> Sunspears

The cutscene where he's trying to order his regained minions was the best part in the entire game. :P


"You miserable hunks of desiccated flesh! I leave you alone for a few hundred years and you let everything go to hell! Now that I'm back, things are going to be different."
"No, No, No! Mummified flesh on the left! Dried bones on the right! No, your other right! You worthless bits of animated anatomy!"



I mean, the guy's even smart enough to realize how powerful your group is, whereas every other villain underestimates you:
"I'm impressed by your confidence on the battlefield. Had you been on my side during the Battle of Jahai, perhaps history would tell a different tale."

You know, that's interesing: in all the times I've played through Factions, it never occurred to me to stop and consider *why* Shiro would want to become mortal again.

But the answer's pretty obvious.

As an Envoy/spirit, he can't get any nookie. And it *has* been a few hundred years ...

That was the BEST cutscene in guildwars except for when rurik dies.

It sure was the funniest.

It was his character flaw. Arrogance. In the absence of Vizu, Archemorus, and Viktor his character assumes defeating your party would be easy. I found the Factions story to be very enjoyable and next to the Shiverpeaks (my favorite zone) the Canthan wilderness outside of the city on Shing Jea, Echovald, and the Jade Sea was all very nicely done.

Then the slop that was Nightfall...a necessary conclusion but my goodness an awful story.

So what's left for GW2? Conquer the world and overthrow the Tyrian pantheons? So what happens for the second GW2 chapter... invade a dozen worlds, wipe out the RoT, clear out the underworld, and conquer their pantheons?

Or maybe someone wipes out a god, then at the end of the first or second GW2 mission he gets wiped out by someone more powerful, who near the end of the game is killed by a lackey who's even more powerful then the second guy, and the heroes have to take out the lackey who's more powerful than the guy who was more powerful than the guy who could beat up a god. In GW2, the lackey's lackey makes processes repeat itself after another "new" god or three dies.

Or maybe there is a second level of gods and in GW2 after clearing out the first bunch, you have to tackle the gods that the other gods worship ad infinium. Cause you have infinate levels.


@Risky Ranger, I'm not argueing that there shouldn't be things like ghosts or goblins or dragons, I'm argueing that we don't need to be heroes of the cosmology or whatever it's called to make a good game.

Its just up to how much time A-Net has to figure out the storyline. That's why prophecies has the best one imo. Factions and Nightfall were rushjobs if you look at the storyline. Who cares who you kill in the end if the story leading up to it is good. I want to kill He-Man

I don't think the stories are that bad. I like Nightfalls whole war theme before you reach the vortex. I had fun in a lot of those missions before then. I also found some to be humourous. I havn't beaten NF yet but i'm pretty close so I can't comment on what happens after that. I do think they could of spent more time on character development though. Regardless so far it's my favorite campaign.

Factions, well, I thought the story was average. The best part about that story was Shiro. At least you got to know your enemy and the reasons why he turned out the way he did. Other then that I didn't enjoy the other aspects of the story that much. I thought the Kurzick and Luxon thing was kind of cool though.

Prophecies for me had a sense of adventure, but the story seemed to jump from one thing to the next more then I would of liked. As a side note though I very much enjoyed watching Rurick get the axe. I never liked that guy.

Anyway really it's a sense of personal taste. As far as the stories go yeah there is room for improvement, but I think they are doing a decent job. Most of the mmos i've played only have like a back story and the rest is grind quests. Talk about blah.

what annoyed me at the end of factions was when the envoy said "let us worry about shiro". So what did they do? Let shiro have a party with the lich and abaddon in the realm of torment.

I really wish they had done something better with Varesh's story. It would have hardly taken any effort at all to give it more depth. Or at least, if they were going to make her so one-dimensional, they could have made her less boring. She is the least memorable of all GW's villains.

I find Palawa Joko fascinating. When you interact with him in the plot, he seems funny and harmless. But when other NPCs talk to you about him, you learn a different story. I find this is the most morally ambiguous part of GW's story. You're helping him regain his power, and finding him amusing. And yet, he has done many terrible things to many people in the past, and will probably do so again in the future. You have to help him, to save the world. But being a hero intent on saving people from harm, it must be unsettling to do something that you know will cause great harm for others in the future...

I love it.

I really wish that part of the plot could have been more elaborated on. And I think it would be better to focus on things like this instead of running around killing gods with leet mending skillz.

The way I always figured it went was that the envoys just know of the RoT not whats going on in there. The whole reason the baddies in Nightfall could even happen was because Grenth (and the gods et al) didn't kill Menzies, Dhuum or Abaddon. Rather than the game acknowledging your toon and party have ascended not once, not twice, but 3 times and killed a god among other things we get a very lame background character (in Kormir) getting all the credit and the glory of becoming deified.

Think about how much better ending the GW1 story as having your toon ascend into demi-god status rather than allegedly "dying of old age" between GW1 and GW2 could have been. If you liked NF thats ok...but for me the whole premise just seemed incredibly stupid and unrewarding. At least the skills were somewhat worth the trouble.

I have read every post, and agree on most of the negativity towards the storylines.

Also, all of the 'filler' stuff written in quests and such is mostly ignored because there is SO MUCH. If someone hadn't made a post about the explanation of Zho's missing eye, I never would have noticed. If they took out a lot of filler crap, the interesting things would stick out.

Why don't the dragons have very big parts? Kuun had a bigger part as an enemy then an ally. She doesn't even fight WITH you. Pfft.

And I completely agree on Palawa Joko being an interesting character, he actually made me laugh.

Holy crap, Guild Wars has a story? O_O

All I see are red dots on my GPS that need to go away.

I totally agree with you. That was something that needed to be enhanced.

Ho shit, I never thought about that. That is indeed pretty lame. Makes ya think a lot less of those four, don't it?

I thought it was great that you didn't know exactly who the bad guy was in Prophecies. Then you went and fought your way through all the Titans to get at the Lich.
Faction, you were introduced to Shiro very early in the game and spent all your time beating up on his minions, then beat him in 30 seconds. He had virutally no help around him except a couple guys that would spawn to recharge your celestial skill. I really thought this story was lame outside of the Kurzicks/Luxons conflict.
I loved Nightfalls story my first time through it. I really hated Varesh and couldn't wait to fight her. Then we were sent to the Realm of Torment. Fighting through a bunch of demon mobs that are push overs, then you fight Shiro and the Lich again. Both are as easy as they were before. If you put SV on Shiro, especially when he starts to double strike and to double strike adjacent foes, he dies faster than a wammo without his mending. Then to kill Abaddon you can stand at the bridge and spam [skill]reversal of damage[/skill] is really lame. And like others said, we do all the work yet Kormir goes and decides to take over as a god. How is that "only a choice a mortal can make" it makes no sence.

I don't get the people who think the Prophecies storyline is the best. I think it is by far the worst. We just blunder around helping all the bad guys. Consider:

1. We back a rebel prince who is consorting with suspicious ambassadors against a wise and moderate king. But, ok, fine, at least Rurik's heart is in the right place.

2. We abandon Ascalon, our homeland, in a time of crisis and then get Rurik killed. Whoops!

3. Then we go to Kryta to help out the White Mantle, a cult of bullies who practice human sacrifice. Hmmm. Bad choice.

4. We discover we've been aiding the bad guys and switch to the side of the Shining Blade. The Shining Blade - for once! - are actually good guys, but the first thing they do is make a very, very dumb decision: they decide to hand the uber-powerful Scepter of Orr over to an obviously skeevy, untrustworthy ambassador in exchange for...what? Some undead minions that the Scepter itself could presumably call up, and a boat? Great bargain!

5. In a time of crisis, we let the skeevy ambassador convince us to save our own hides instead of defending our allies. We abandon the Shining Blade to wholesale slaughter at the hands of the White Mantle and then go "find ourselves" in the desert. Talk about heroic.

6. We find out about the "flameseeker prophecies" and it seems like maybe there's a point to what we're doing after all. Glint and the Seer think they say we'll be able to eliminate the Mursaat. I'm not sure what the Lich thinks they say, but he obviously believes he can use us and our role in the prophecies for personal gain.

Then we find out that the ambassador whose orders we have been following like good little foot soldiers is, in fact, the Evil Lich. So we kill him. And that's it.

But...what about the Mursaat? They're still running rampant. The only thing we accomplish by the end of Prophecies is to kill the guy who wouldn't have been a threat if we hadn't given him the Scepter in the first place.

At the end of the campaign I was like, what? We are such retards. Somebody should lock us up, for spending so much time aiding and abetting bad bad people, for making big messes and never sticking around to clean them up, and for our total lack of loyalty.

The plotline of Factions and Nightfall made SO much more sense to me, in comparison.

lol, we know how to play the game wetsparks.. but i get your point..

proph was.. meh.. generic.. overrated by the community imo, and way too WoW clone to make me feel differentiated between other MMOs, and in fact, i didnt really like GWs till Factions, which had a really fun storyline, and for those of use who didnt know what to expect at the ending (i was one of the ppl who fought shiro day two of factions comming out, so there was no guides or tips on how to kill him.. just the idea.. "he's going to be melee... bring antimelee " ), he was a fun challenge. skill changes made him and lich way too easy nowadays.. but thats besides the point.. as for NF, well, it was way worse than any of the others by far, and its almost pathetic that Palawa Joko was the best character, with the most personality, and they kinda leave him out of the mix in the end..

"upping the ante" is something that game developers would love to do, but is harder than it sounds. also, over the top stories are part of the f a n t a s y... kinda obvious that a genre with such a title would have a .. oh idk.. climactic story ending?? if you want a boring, everyday story, play sims or like.. desperate housewives for the PC.

Unless we are ascended, we cannot see the Mursaat (lore fluff). And if we're fighting blind, we're going to die.

But hey, at least we died trying, right? zOMG the pain of Spectral Agony!

So agree. Palawa Joko was by far the most interesting NPC in all of Nightfall. Yes, even more than Zhed. Though the dialog between those two was the best in all of GW, IMO. Even better than Mehnlo and Cynn.

Easy to understand but eeeh...Like I said, not much happens, more so in Nightfall.

At least Prophecies went places, and it wasn't just like the later two campaigns, both of which had someone betraying their country for sinister power.

My favorite mission in NF was the consulate docks mission because you think you are going to finish off Veresh and she summons her demons and totally wipes the sunspear invasion force. IMHO I really liked the cutscene in that mission.

"Then we find out that the ambassador whose orders we have been following like good little foot soldiers is, in fact, the Evil Lich. So we kill him. And that's it."

Ya, that's something I always found humorous - that the Lich starts crowing about how the Flameseeker Prophesies foretold everything ... then we bust his chops. Guess he forgot to read the last page.

I don't think anyone comes to these games expecting the depth of something like, say, Planescape: Torment (and, in that sense, they don't disappoint). But the plots are certainly serviceable enough for what they are IMO - good, goofy, slightly over-the-top fun.

Look at Baldur's Gate, for example: ****SPOILER ALERT**** here's a story in which the bad guy 'poisons' a country's iron ore so that he can corner the market with his untainted ore, thereby deriving immeasureable material and political power for himself.

Actually kind of interesting that the devs took this approach, basing the story on how the struggle for economic resources is often the underlying reason for political strife (war). Gives you the impression they sat through too many poli-sci classes in college before dropping out to become games programmers.

On the other hand, it actually turned out to be sort of boring, too, when you get to the end and find out you've saved the world from a ... robber baron/evil monopolist?

Any wonder that they abandonned this rather cerebral approach in BG2/ToB, reverting back to the tried-and-true "saving the world from really evil bad guy/becoming a demi-god" RPG conventions?

Well, there's a lot of amazing stories out in RPG's (spoilers):

1) In Fallout 1, "The Master" is using a cult to disguise his plans to force all humans to evolve using the FEV virus. You have to uncover his plans, and do one of two things: Kill him, or convince him that the mutants from the FEV virus are sterile. That's not even including the backstory of Fallout 1.
2) In Chrono Trigger, Lavos' causes time aberrations as he sucks the planet's life force. You see the world after he has used it, and you find a time where magic was real.
3) Super Mario RPG, Bowser gets thrown out of his own castle by Smithy, and you must venture around the archipelagos of Mario's area to find a way into Smithy's (formerly Bowser's) fortress. Then you must defeat Smithy. There was something about Star Way too.



To be honest, with the Guild Wars stories, there's not a whole lot of memorable characters. At best, there's Glint, Palawa Joko, Mhenlo, and Cynn. They're the only ones who seem to be human (or dragon in Glint's case), and have a personality.

As others have said Palawa Joko was a very interesting character.

As for new goal ideas I vote 'rescue the princess'!
You can have 'rescue the princess'! for every mission.

I'm hoping they do something new with the Great Destroyer. And I think I know what it's going to be. You don't win. They want to introduce you to the story of GW2, and what better way than to have your merry band of humans (and a couple of non humans if you take the hero route) comeup against an enemy powerful enough that it requires all the races to get together to destroy.

You walk in, do your best to kill the thing, but lose. Maybe have the Sylvari show up in a little cameo role to save your asses. You have now been introduced to the storyline of GW2 - you met the big bad guy, you lost, you need to get the races to ally together in GW2 to kill it, and you also got introduced to the new playable races.

Actually we didnt Abandon Ascalon we were Banished from it because the Prideful King had grown Fearful of engaging the Charr in Battle and tried to hide behind his "safe" Wall which in the End nearly Cost him his Kingdom. It wasnt till the Death of Rurik that the King realised what he had become and Rallied with his troops to stop the Charr/Titan forces from spreading Further.

The Mantle werent Evil, they were a shade of grey, they protected Kryta, sure ok they were a bunch of bullies but they were there to protect the others. And Yes they did sacrafise the Chosen at the request of the Mursaat but Ultimatly this was also protecting the World from the Titans, Is the life of thousands worth the cost of a few peasents? Hence a shade of Grey neither good nor bad

Wasnt the first thing they did, first they establisted a new home in Magumma, then they gave the Staff to a trusted and Wise former Kings Advisor who happened to be a powerful wizard. The Scepter of Orr was unknown to he as powerful as it was and it was given as a gift to the Vizier to gain his trust and help, since like him it was of Orrian decent.

The Shining Blade were already pushed into the shiverpeaks before we even known of Markis's betrayal, And the leader of the shiverpeak was imprisoned and Guarded by the Mursaat who at the time we were no match for, hence we had to Seek the great Phophet Glint to Advise us and we had to Ascend to become more powerful so we could fight the Mursaat.

The Mursaat were Wiped out by the Titans after there release, they suffered Great loses and were either close to (or were) totally wiped out.

Our loyalit was to all things good, we saved the all of Tryia from the machinations of the Lich who had ploted and decived us into helping him not realising the Prophecy would also lead to his defeat and the Closing of the Door of Komalie, he thought the release of the Titan was the End of the prophecies, but everyone knows prophecies dont tell u everything

So instead of saving the world by defeating some big bad guy, you want to save a kingdom or domain or princess by defeating some big bad guy.

Its all the same thing. I dont see the issue!

Its a computer game, at the end of the day. RPG/MMOS all follow the same, general structure of good-guys, bad-guys, big bad boss etc etc etc.

How they work the story around that is their choice. But its all the same thing.

Of course it's all the same thing, dude. It's how it's told and what happens inbetween that matters.