An Open Letter to Anet Re: Roleplaying and Character Motivation

An Open Letter to Anet

I'd like to start by thanking you for producing a well-balanced and thoughtful MMO experience that is, in my opinion, unmatched in any way. Though I have played other MMOs, I have made Guild Wars my home. One of the main reasons for this is the storyline, and my attachment to the characters.

While it is true that some people only PVP, and many don't care at all about the story, I can say that there is a fair percentage of people who love the characters, the lore, the world of Tyria. We play Guild Wars to immerse ourselves in that world. That is a credit to your skill of creation.

By the same token, because you've created such a staggeringly well thought-out process, when I see points in the storyline that don't make sense, or pull me out of character, they are greatly exaggerated.

As an example, in the Blacktide Den mission in Nightfall, we're asked to steal some Corsair garb and meet with General Khayet. The entire mission is a wonderful continuation of the storyline. The problem I have with the mission is with the bonus and not just because it's annoying.

When you steal the Corsair garb, you're given a bonus to eliminate rinkhal monitors from the area. For a game, that's not a problem. For a world it is, because though you've placed text on the screen telling me what I have to do, you haven't given my characters any motivation at all for doing so. My characters can't SEE my screen. Sure I did it, I wanted a title, but there was no explanation of why I had to do it. What is the significance of rinkhal monitors and why do I abandon my very important mission of following Captain Besuz to hunt a few monsters that aren't really different from most other monsters from a character's perspective?

The best mission bonuses are often in Prophecies, where they were justified. Helping to locate a hidden threat, or steal plans for a Stone Summit weapon is something that would motivate my character. Even putting a restless spirit to rest is something that could conceivably motivate my character.

Another issue that has disturbs me, involves Factions, which is a very underrated game in my opinion. Every Guild Wars product (I've beaten them all in normal mode, as has my wife) has its own brand of strength, and I love them all. But then, I'm asked to make an alliance with a Guild in Factions, yet there are quests where I have to kill my own allies. Places where, as a Luxon, I still am forced to kill Luxons. There really isn't anything I can think of in Factions to motivate me to kill members of my own alliance. I don't really think it was necessary to the plot of the game. Certainly not for secondary quests.

I think that might be what disturbs me the most. Adding the motivation for my characters isn't something that would cost a great deal of money. By pointing out why rinkhal monitors needed to be eliminated, just a small text aside, would have made my enjoyment of an already great game more complete.

One final comment about Nightfall. In the cut scene where Tahlkora admits she's always understood that she was just a student to Koss, and Melonni could have him, that entire scene didn't have the impact that it should have had, because I wasn't aware in any real sense that anything existed between Tahlkora and Koss in the first place. I found myself more perplexed than anything else. Sure there are text messages, that float up occasionally, where Tahlkora shows an interest in Koss. However, since those messages often come up while fighting rather than being printed in a large box, or in your text window, I missed all of them. So did my wife. So did everyone else I asked about it. As the creator, you are privy to storyline elements and may think that it's clear Tahlkora is in love with Koss, or at least has a crush on him, but you didn't make it clear to the players. Though a cut scene would have been nice, it only required a small aside or part of a quest dialogue to establish this in our mind. So when the cut scene did appear in the story arc, it would have been more accessible to the players.

I'd like to finish by saying, a lot of people don't notice things like this, but as a writer, story is part and parcel of my business. You've created a remarkable game and, far from complaining, I'm just hoping to give you something to consider while working on Guild Wars 2, which I thoroughly intend to buy.

Thanks again, for all the hours of enjoyment.

Khyr Lord of Kaoz

I've always wondered about the rikthal monitors also...and Tahlkora and koss...

Also wtf do people see in koss! >_<

Yeah I can see where this would bug RPers, but I think its almost impossible to make a perfect RP game without loosing gameplay.

In my examples, nothing would have affected roleplaying at all. The beauty of character motivation, is that it requires very little to explain things. What gameplay would be lost. It would have been even easier, in the Blacktide Den mission to have included a different bonus, that aided the storyline, without putting in something that had nothing to do with it. Gameplay would not have to suffer.

I'm sure that talent at Anet could easily create the same level of gameplay, while keeping characters realistically motivated.

Thanks for a well thought out letter. I echo the sentiments that:
1. I love this game
2. This is a great game
3. Plot elements should be better explained, which costs little, and greatly enhances the story.

I would add to your Faction comment, that I am still unclear on the entire Shiro plot. It really felt like "blah blah Shiro blah blah faction wars blah blah Shiro". Something went missing in that plot for me...

Yeah, there should be an option to make Henchmen text lines appear in the party channel, otherwise you miss lots of them.

Thankfully, when Dunkoro explains you how to raid the Kournan fortresses dialogs pop up.

And I'm still wonder why are we supposed to kill those Rinkhal. They don't say that it's due a plague or anything.

YAY not seen "an open letter to A-net" in months w00t

what is even rarer is that it isn't a QQ fest, GZ on this sensible post Khyr

(btw don't expect a-net to actually do anything at all or if they do expect to see it implemented by 2012)

well-written post, khyr.

i hope, gw2 will be more like prophecies than any of the other campaigns or expansion. prophecies had this great freedom of an open world, the introduction to pvp while pveing and a well presented story. i am glad that anet tried stuff with the other campaigns and the expansion for the sake of trial and error and that they found, over time, the right direction.

Nice letter, and I mostly agree.

However, I must state that for the most part? Mission bonuses for Prophecies tend to be completely out of the way and totally irrelevant, in my opinion. Unlike Nightfall where the only one I can think of that's kind of "um, okay" is, as you mentioned, the rinkhal monitors.

Very nice letter. There are indeed some inconsistencies in the story. I agree that Prophecies had the most coherent storyline with several quests adding a lot to the main story. Several quests seem to be out of the blue and it would be nice to get them reworked. For me quite weird bonus was killing glint...

The Prophecies bonuses are generally irrelevant to the mission goal itself, but that wasn't Khyr's point. You always encounter some NPC out in the middle of the mission who gives a reason to your character for diverting from the main track, so it all takes place in a role-playing context.

I have to agree this is superior to giving the bonus goal to the player rather than the character. I also dislike most of the time bonuses, especially in Factions, for the same reason. There is rarely any indication of why your character would need to hurry, and most of them seem to involve beating the clock simply for the sake of beating the clock. (One exception being Raisu Palace, where you have a limited amount of time to reach the emperor because he's under attack.)

That is true, however. If you were actually your character, and you were, say, sent out to scout and some ghost asked you to return his armor, would you drop what you were ordered to do in order to do so? Or while trying to stop the Mursaat, escort a ghost to a random part of the island?

Yes, there is the fact that there's an NPC asking you to do stuff, which is why we do the bonuses in Prophecies. My point, though, was that they tend to either add nothing to the plot itself nor appear to aid anything, and in fact can actively detract from it. They take place in a roleplaying sense, but don't make any logical sense at all and there's no good reason why your character would agree to do the majority of them, so it also sort of breaks the RP feel. Riverside Province and Hell's Precipice are the only ones I can think of off-hand where the mission bonuses are actually useful and there is good reason why our characters would do it.

Dunno. Koss does virtually nothing useful except force me to take him along and steals my thunder in cutscenes. Really, he's the Mr. Satan/Hercule of Guild Wars, IMHO. :P

(and, yes, that's what makes me hate Nightfall - being forced to take him, Dunkoro, Melonni, Talkhora, that arrogant centaur, the idiot general, etc., along for primary quests and missions rather than being able to decide on my own party composition)

It is hard to have a story and motivation when most of the game is 'follow the green arrow.'

It's harder to have a story and motivation when you're one of 2 million other people commissioned to be the savior of the land.

Hi, nice post! I agree with your points.
But I play this game since release, so I have done everything. and completed all missions etc. what i'm trying to say is. players like me dont care about the story anymore (after 4 years). the only thing I see now is yellow numbers and titles etc. I still love this game <3

But you don't write a game, just for people who have been playing for four years, and GW2, no one has been playing yet at all. This is not an attempt to get Anet to fix GW. I assume that boat has already sailed. I'm asking they LOOK AT similar things in GW2, so when it comes it, I'm not pulled out of the game.

I actually quite like the Shiro plot, and didn't find it that hard to understand, per se. Though factions is a VERY fast game, and you have to really think to stay up on it. Salient points are as follows...

200 plus years before the game starts, on the day of the Jade Wind, Shiro Tagachi slays the Emperor of Cantha for reasons no one knows.

He was later slain by two great heroes, one from each of the factions, Kurzick and Luxon. This would be Viktor and Archemorous. I assume the disagreement over who really slew Shiro is what actually started the feud between the factions in the first place.

Shiro was given the "job" of escorting new dead to the underworld, as one of the envoys, but used his time working with the physical to research ways to be reborn.

Those who got too close to Shiro, became the afflicted, which everyone thought was a disease at first, but turned out to be something else entirely.

Togo realizes Shiro is about to return and so then, with you, starts trying to find out the how's and whys.

He's told directly that in order to stop shiro, he needs to reunite the factions and get the help of both the heroes who have slain him before.

The plot then centers around getting the Spear of Archemorous, which is here the Luxon champion's soul is stored and the Urn of Saint Viktor, where the Kurzick champions soul is stored.

Shiro, wants to be reborn. Of course, during the story, we find that he wasn't actually acting under his own influence and another influenced him. It is particularly gratifying for me, that we get to go after that person in Nightfall. I thought that was a great touch.

I honestly don't know what you found inaccessible about the story.

[QUOTE=BrettM;4682518]The Prophecies bonuses are generally irrelevant to the mission goal itself, but that wasn't Khyr's point. You always encounter some NPC out in the middle of the mission who gives a reason to your character for diverting from the main track, so it all takes place in a role-playing context.

Thanks, yes, that WAS my point. And even though I can't necessarily see going out of my way to stop what I'm doing to say, save a spirit's soul, at least I know WHY I'm doing it. And truthfully, putting a soul to rest, in my mind, is a worthy endeavor. Sure, I wouldn't likely drop everything to do it, but you can't have everything. It would be nice if the bonuses made sense from a storyline point of view, but I'd be happy if at least I knew why my character was supposed to do them.

Oddly enough, I hadn't thought about this, but you're 100% right. There wasn't much reason to kill Glint. I can only assume, that you went to the eggs and had to kill her in self defense, which is part of the story. I mean, once she attacks you, what choice do you have?

I have to disagree with this to some degree. If you want, you can always move your u map to block your radar, which I do sometimes, but the story is still the story. I can separate to some degree game mechanics from the story, as long as I'm sufficiently motivated.

In Pre-searing Ascalon, I was having fun, enjoying some simple quests, met some nice people and the next thing you know, the place is a wreck, people have died, and I felt it. That is the kind of thing that, for me, makes GW a stand out game. I tried other games, and never "felt" them.

Which is why the idea of having a separate instance for each player works for GW very well. They are all saving their own parallel universe worlds, you're saving yours.

TBH I'm worried about GW2 becoming less involving because of this. Hope they've found a way to work around it.

Thanks, as already stated, I am hoping to make an impression for GW2, rather than have them change GW. It's a small enough thing to look at, if you have an eye for it. Unfortunately, because I do have an eye for it, it makes it that much easier for me to be taken out of the game.

But you see pre-searing had a better story and quest execution than the rest of the game and every expansion since.

The point I was trying to make is that every quest in the game is go to the target and kill/interact/pickup, go to the next target and repeat. These are the same ultra generic quests that are choking the entire MMO industry to death. It is hard to have a good story and motivation using this type of generic quest structure that has been done to death.

I think the difference between us is how we approach playing a game like GW. I use the game as a springboard, but that's all it is. My interest is in how each character develops, even if the circumstances remain the same. As a writer, I live each character differently, hence my earlier comments about role-playing.

The quests that interest me most, are quests where other decisions need to be made, such as choosing which child inherits a man's fortune, or choosing between heroes. I also enjoyed polymock and would love to see a version of PVP polymock in GW (though I'm sure it won't happen).

The other issue here is realistic desire for what can be done. Because creating/producing an MMO requires such a huge investment in time/money and energy, it's unlikely that people will try something new and different, for the risk is too great. Same with Hollywood movies and Madison Avenue Publishing. At the end of the day, companies are in business to make money. MMOs make money by appealing to the lowest common denominator. The more thoughtful and creative you are, the more likely you'll soon get tired of the same old thing. Not everyone will notice it, because not everyone is looking for more than they already have.

Look at the fantasy novels that have come out in the last 20 years. A handful of stories, told differently. Adventure, quest stories are STILL adventure quest stories, no matter how involved your background is, how detailed your cities and cultures, there are only so many stories that can be told. Everything else is a variation on it.

If there is a solution to the problem you're referring to, I'm sure I don't know it.

My primary still has a chip on her shoulder regarding what the Charr did to her mentor (she's a Mesmer primary... )

I'd agree with the Rinkhal thing - it does stretch the suspension of disbelief somewhat that, in an undercover mission, a bunch of supposed pirates are going to go off on their own to hunt rinkhal. If there were reasons for it - both a reason why the characters might do it, and a reason why the Kournan captain wouldn't grow suspicious from the rinkhal-hunting excursions - than it would work, but as it is it just seems to be risking the mission for no good reason.

One possible way of doing it could be to have had the bonus come from some instructions from Ironfist on a note in the Corsair camp about collecting rinkhal parts - giving an excuse as well as an incentive to exterminate the rinkhal to deny them to the corsairs.

Regarding Cantha... actually, many of the missions realistically do have a time pressure in the eyes of the characters even if there isn't a time after which the mission is failed. In Cho's Estate, you want to get to the Minister before something bad happens to him, in Zen Daijun you want to contain the problem before it spreads, in Vizuneh you're trying to catch Shiro... and so on.

On the whole, though, I think Prophecies and Factions represented two different mission reward structures. Prophecies rewards were largely essentially side-quests that happened to occur in the mission zones - some of which were actually related to the mission and others weren't directly related but had to be done now if ever... but others could easily have been left until after the main objectives were complete. Factions, on the other hand, was entirely based on how competantly you completed the mission objectives - those that involved protecting something are based on how many survive, while for others ANet saw speed as the mark of having 'mastered' the mission. Nightfall, however, seemed to be the result of ANet learning from and blending the two reward structures - largely keeping the 'bonus' objectives intuitively linked to, or at least compatible with, the primary objectives (with the exception of the Rinkhal sidequest) and keeping timed missions as an occasional thing rather than an overwhelming majority.

Make Captain Besuz into a corrupt smuggler/poacher/whatever. Put one of the Rinkahl monitors near him, and make killing one trigger a dialog asking the party of "corsairs" to go and kill them to collect whatever trophy. Since there are no Rinkahl on the mainland of Elona, and the captain is presumably being watched by his fellow Kournans, the party represents an opportunity for the greedy captain. Have him tell us that the Rinkahl( insert trophy like horn, tooth, spine, what have you) is prized on the mainland, and he'll make it worth your while to retrieve 1 ... 5 of them. Insert reward dialogue, etc.

The bonus in that mission is pretty random from a story standpoint.

Great idea! I love it. He could sell rinkhal talons as wards against evil or to improve libido. It's perfect. lol

I should say, that the examples I've raised are some of the most obvious, but they are far from all the examples I can think of.

In the Rihlon Refuge mission, we're asked to kill the Drought. We're told that turning off the water weakens it. We're given bonus to defeat it while it's stronger. From a roleplaying point of view, that makes no sense, because in the game, I'm trying to kill it, so it makes more sense to have it weak than strong. I'm not interested in playing a game, I'm trying to save Kourna and the Elon River.

What I want, above anything, is not to whine about a great game, but to point out how a great game can be improved, with little cost to the company.

I chose my examples as stand out examples.

There are flaws in ALL games, and GW is no exception. But there is, in GW a brilliance that so far outshines the flaws, I almost feel bad bringing up the whole issue.

Probably the only reason I did, was because GW 2 isn't out yet, and maybe, just maybe, someone at Anet will see this post and have something to think about.

Another angle that will help a small but dedicated percentage of the gaming population enjoy the game more, again, without having to invest much to do so.

Aye, that is a weird one.

I've always thought of it as being because the Waterworks do actually have a purpose besides serving as a suitable home for the Drought (whether that purpose was actually its primary purpose or whether Varesh knew she'd be summoning the Drought and built the Waterworks primarily for that with its public function as an excuse in unknown). While shutting down the pumps weakens the Drought, it also interferes with the normal operation of the Waterworks which may have negative effects on the farmers who are supplied by the works. Killing the Drought is obviously the main priority (the farmers aren't going to get any water at all with a demon called 'the Drought' sitting in the water supply), but if you can do that without interfering with the site's operations, so much the better.

(I vaguely remember there being implications that even without the Drought that the existence of the waterworks was causing more harm than good, but that doesn't necessarily mean shutting it down abruptly is better than leaving it running until a more planned-out solution can be found.)

That's how I always thought of it. Sure, getting rid of the Drought ASAP is important, but so is doing so without harming everything and everyone else in that area, which could happen by shutting off the water. And the Sunspears have always struck me as the type to try and do things with as little collateral damage as possible (unlike in Prophecies, where you merrily run from place to place wreaking nearly as much havoc as the bad guys do, ultimately. Sure, you save the world, but you also screwed it over a bit yourself).

You and your party are also heroes. Don't forget that. You get more status and acclaim for killing stronger enemies than you do weaker. Doesn't hurt that, in purely game term mechanic terms, you also get more reward for killing stronger enemies than you do weaker.

As for the Rinkhal Monitors, I always assumed that they were considered a dangerous pest that see humans as a food source (rather than something that will attack because you got too close and it feels the need to defend itself), as per Uhisheh's dialogue, so when you encountered the one on the mission path in Blacktide Den, you took it upon yourself to stop a newly-discovered infestation...

Well you are talking about roleplaying. I personally love the lore of Guild Wars too, but there is a difference between us: I make my own plots. Guild Wars is not a movie, but a game, so while certain aspects of the story are given to us by A-net, others are up to our own imagination. Since we ourselves can interact with the environment, we can not expect the game to tell us everything beforehand. If you truly enjoy roleplaying, then put yourself into the world and think about your own motivation.

For instance the Rinkhal Monitors, I personally made a bestiary role for them:

Rinkhal Monitor: A poisonous serpent-like beast that generally resides in dark, wet areas. Rinkhal Monitors can become more than a hundred years old and can be split up into two different fases: Fase 1) Young: A young Rinkhal lives isolated from others and is shy of nature. While they are fierce animals they generally stay away from areas with many humans. Fase 2) Behemoth: An adult Rinkhal, or commonly referred to as Scytheclaw Behemoth, is different from the young ones in the aspect that they hunt in packs, they bigger, they reside in dry, light areas, and they are generally more aggressive towards humans.
Why you should kill them in the Blacktide Den: The Rinkhal Monitors in the den are on the edge to becomming fully fledged adults. If they become that they will be a threat towards the Istani commoners. Therefore they are to be eliminated before that happens.

That's just an example of my motivation

Actually, the 5 Rinkhal Monitors hatched from eggs encased in a meteorite that slammed into the island of Istan. The Rinkhal larval stage is an insect-like parasite that attaches to the head of an animal and impregnates the host body with the adult form of the rinkhal. After three days, the metamorphosis is complete, and the adult rinkhal bursts forth from the host's chest cavity with the aid of its teeth and claws, feeding on the remains to stimulate its rapid growth to maturity. Once it is fully grown, it paralyzes further victims and carries them back to the nest where the eggs laid by the queen of the hive repeat this vicious cycle. Our heroes are of course tasked with destroying this invasion before the hive can infest all of Tyria.

Pretty sure there's some Marines and a Predator or two involved as well. Oh, wait.

I lol'ed XD
12chars

Do role play characters end up walking to everytown they wanna go to? Or do they use fast travel like everyone else.
Unless you actually walk from town to town you shouldnt ask for a more realistic version of the game since you are making it less realistic by not waling all around.
imo this game is totally unsuited for rp.

It's a fantasy world, noone asked for realism. All that has been asked for was a reason to do certain sidequests.

Frankly, role players have bigger issues than this kind of motivation

Lack of mundane costumes and props.

even something as simple as targeted emotes.

Map travel is part of the game world and it's introduced as part of the game world. You can accept that or not, as with anything in a game. Yet IN the game world, map travel is referred to. That's okay for me, because now my CHARACTER thinks map travel is possible. It has to do with your ablitity so suspend disbelieve.

But please don't confuse realism for plausibility, or what you know and what your character knows.

Fantasy does not need to be realistic, but any writer worth his salt will tell you it has to be plausible. To attain plausibility, that means you have to have some degree of consistency.

The biggest problem with consistency in most games, is the ability to rez. Surely if you die, and you can just come back, then killing any foe is meaningless, cause they'll just come back. And when an allie dies and you can't rez them, but you can rez your own team members, that pushes it too.

You choose to believe or disbelieve this. That's a choice.

But I'm talking about trying to understand the difference between what YOU know and what your character knows.

Presumably, your character will know all sorts of things you don't. He's lived in Elona, or Tyria or Cathan for a lifetime. He knows what food is there, what entertainment, what strange happenings have occurred. If the game maker doesn't fill you in, then your character may know, but you'd be in the dark.

And as other people have said, you can make up your own, but that can be problematical, if everyone is making up their own stuff at counterpoint to what other people that you interact with are making up. That's why the game should provide rational motivation for characters.

I'm not asking for anything but consistency. If some of the earlier missions didn't have bonuses in game, then the later ones wouldn't have had to. Having some one way, and some the other way, pulls ME out of the game. Therefore, I choose to talk about it, so hopefully, someone at Anet will get wind of it, and make changes to the next game, so I can enjoy it MORE.

Again, I'm not a complainer by nature, I'm taking steps to be heard for a reason.

This shows a great creativity, and I applaud you for it. I used to do the same sort of thing, but that becomes a different matter in an MMO than in a world that only you are playing in, such as an old fashioned adventure game.

For one thing, there is issues in the game itself, such as families of creatures. If you had a rihnkal monitor and diseased it, and sent it into a group of scytheclaws, would that disease spread. Or are rihnkals part of another group. See in a shared world, which an MMO is, creativity works if you choose a solo experience, but not necessarily if you choose a shared experience.

As I've said on a number of occassions, I'm a writer. I've written and sold stories, poems, articles, etc. Imagination is not something I'm lacking. But then, I am also likely to look at things in terms of plot and motivation, because when I write I'm FORCED to.

I could make up a million reasons why something MIGHT be the case, but no matter what I make up, there's still the fact that Besuz doesn't find my behavior so weird that he doesn't become suspicious. And no matter what you say about what they become, how does that actually motivate my character to abandon is quest and go hunt them at this moment. Presumably, the rhinkals have been there all along. They didn't just appear when General Kayhet's treachery was discovered. So why, at this point, when I have this whole nightfall thing to worry about, would this pest problem become so important?

Sure, it's great to be able to explain things in a game, and rationalize that which doesn't quite make sense, but it also is a good idea for the game maker to provide a motivation for the character, that is different from a motivation for the player.

I can buy most implausible things, for the sake of playing a game, as long as my character becomes aware of that implausible thing. Because even if I think something is implausible, to my character it's the world, and thus real.

I'm not so sure I agree with this...because I think there are different types of roleplayers.

I'm old school. I started on D&D and then made my own RPG which my friends and I played for decades. I don't depend on the looks of my character and my emotes for much of anything. Sure it's nice and lovely and wonderful to have those things, and they don't hurt, but they're not much of a problem for me, and probably not for my generation of players either.

Realistically, GW was written at a time when computer limitations were far greater than the limits of imagination. Otherwise, you could design your OWN armor, as you could in a virtual world like Second Life.

Limitation in GW deals with the idea that so many types of armor exist and making more takes man hours of work, etc and not everyone cares. I see this as something that costs the company money and they have to balance the idea of spending time and money on that or other graphic issues.

My idea is something that just requires a slightly different mindset, while creating and doesn't cost the company anything.

Sure I'd love more armor choices, more face choices, more hair choices.

In fact, I've LOVE a feature for a character Nickname that can be changed as the game progresses, but isn't an account name.

For example, my character Khyr Lord of Kaoz is named Khyr Lord of Kaoz because that's what he is. I might have just named him Khyr, except that you must have a multiple word character name. I accept this.

But then when anyone in game refers to him, they call him Khyr Lord of Kaoz, even his close and good friends like Koss. I'd much rather Koss just call him Khyr or Boss than Khyr Lord of Kaoz. That pulls me out of the game too.

You're probably from a later generation of "role-players", who use the modern definition of roleplaying. I'm 47 years old and probably come from a different world. One not rooted in what the computer shows me. Think it terms of the old text adventures, where we had NO graphics, and you'll see why your issue isn't mine. lol