An Open Letter to Anet Re: Roleplaying and Character Motivation

Actually, map travel is a weird one. For instance, you have that one introductory quest in Nightfall that introduces it to the player, and then once you get into the L20 content, you have to go through a mission to get wounded Sunspears back to Kamadan and to report back to the Istani Elders... but why can't you all just map travel back to Istan?

Myself, I've considered that particular quest to be of questionable canonicity, and that map travel is simply an abstraction for the benefit of the player - on the whole, by getting there once you've shown that you CAN get there, and map travel after that is a simple matter of retracing your steps. It's there so you can go directly to the fun instead of spending an hour getting your character there - after all, Guild Wars doesn't have the $15/month incentive to slow people down with timesinks.

Under this logic, there are probably times when you really shouldn't be able to map travel freely (map travelling out of Kourna before completing Venta Cemetary, for instance), but I'm thinking ANet didn't want to annoy people by making them potentially have their character be unavailable for some event due to being at an inconvenient point in the storyline.

I have no idea why I never thought of that. Of course, resurrection itself is an issue, in the game. Why can you ressurect, but your allies can't?

That's an easy one.

Some things work only for chosen ones.
We know that not only players are chosen ones (some henchmen and even some other NPCs are chosen ones)
Only chosen ones can be brought back from the mists and be resurrected, only chosen ones can map travel, and so on.

So you're a chosen one, but Master Togo is not? Komir, who becomes more than all of us? I have had the same thought, about being "chosen", though if it were the case, it should have been mentioned in game. Which is part of what I'm talking about.

I do wonder if they'll retain map travel in GW2.

About ressurrection I've always seen it like Greek Mythology:

There is a set destiny for the players to become heroes and therefore, them dying would create chaos in the universe seeing as they didn't fulfill their destiny. Therefore it is up to the gods, who know about this destiny, to make sure that we fulfil it. So they ressurrect us, bless us with divine powers when needed and so on.

Bravo. Genious post and very good point. I think you've pointed out pretty well what put me off in FA and NF in terms of storyline ... do-it-as-fast-as-you-can missions without any sort of consideration, non-existent plot at a times, bonus objectives without any kind of sense or way too ease to make. I still remember some proph missions where doing bonus took as long or twice as long as actual mission, BUT IT WAS WORTH IT.

My point remains, players in a consistent or persistent world, shouldn't have to think up their own excuses for plot issues. If that is the case, and mayhap it is, it's easy enough to write it into the tutorial.

Thanks, glad you liked it. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of long bonses but I don't really mind them either. I think the Factions storyline isn't all that bad, except for having to fight members of your own faction at times. As a roleplayer (and a luxon), I always hate having to kill other luxons. I keep telling myself that it's okay, they'll get ressurected. lol

I'm curious, since I'm Kurzick. When do you have to fight your own faction?

There's a spot in in the northwest corner of Boreas Seabed and there's a Luxon quest (The Halcyon Job) that sends you there to confront the Guild of 1000 Daggers (a group of assassins) and their boss. The peasants in that area are Canthans while the regular guild members are Luxons. Always figured they were considered criminals (specifically, ones preying on the Luxons and making a deal with the Kurzicks). No big deal.

Oh yeah I know that quest. Well they could at least have made the enemies "Outcasts" instead. But as you said: No biggie.

Any time you take any repeatable quest in any area, you'll be fighting your own. Luxons drop down when you take a quest in a Kurzick area. I didn't know at first, and now I refuse to take them.

In the Eternal Grove Mission you're forced to fight Luxons, of course, that are taking, the Forever Trees and conversely, in the Gyala Hatchery Mission, you're forced to fight Kurzicks, even if you are a Kurzick.

These story line plots are okay, but for my mind, could have been improved. If you are allied with a luxon guild, easy enough to check, Menlo, or one of the guys who's part of the story but allied to neither Faction, could have said something like: Look I know these people we're about to face are friends of yours, but just remember what is at stake. If Shiro wins, we're all finished.

The reason this wasn't done, is very simply that when Factions was made, I don't think Anet realized just how many of us DO roleplay. They learned over the years and have said as much. There's a great panel discussion they had at a convention that is somewhere on line.

People do take the lore, the plot, the world of Tyria, VERY seriously. Not all people, not even most, be a significant number, must larger than they first suspected.

Again, I love this game. The only thing I don't love, is when I'm brought out of it. I want to live the world. I've often moved my U map over my radar, and zoomed in close to my character, because I wanted the realism of not having a radar at all. It completely changes the game. Makes it much harder. By the same token, it also allows you walk through an area of the game, as if you were there, seeing only what your character would see. You have to keep turning and looking to know if something is coming up on you.

I'm from a later generation of roleplayers, but I'm still where you are Khyr. I'm brushing 30, but I'm a role-player through and through. Started in high school nearly half my lifetime ago with 2nd Ed D&D and I gotta say paper and dice all the way. Trying to roleplay with a computer...it just seems wrong. While in one respect it's more 'real' then say miniatures or the like, at the same time it's way too limited. It takes are too much to script in everything that a good RPG needs and having a real, live GM/ST/DM sitting in the same room as you to handle stuff on the fly is far superior to running the same quest/mission over and over again...it just cannot compare.

I know that alot of people cannot find good gaming groups, but trying to RP in a virtual world like Guild Wars or WoW is just the wrong way to go about it.

Actually, it's not the wrong way to go about it. It is the wrong way for YOU to go about it, maybe. I'm quite happy with my roleplaying accomplishments in GW.

My wife plays too, she roleplays too and that's all I need. I have a couple of other friends too that used to pen and and paper roleplay with me.

They're still in NYC however and I'm in Tasmania now. We all make the best with the tools available to us.

Khyr, Shiro killed the emporer because he was tricked by the fortune teller, an agent of abaddon. lore ftw

as for the eternal grove, if you were a german soldier in the american wwii forces, you couldn't just say "hey, guys, its cool, im a german, we dont have to fight". simply, the kurz/lux have been fighting for a long time, and you're just some guy who tends to help them out now and then... not worth taking your word on it.

Guild Wars Faction is pretty much an allusion to the play of Macbeth if you think about it.

I know that. My issue is, my guild is allied with the Luxons, therefore I am a Luxon, therefore Menhlo should be a bit more in character and just explain to me that he understands my pain. As a writer, it's a very old trick.

As long as you as the author acknowledge something, it will appear to your readers as if you've thought it through. I hate revealing inside secrets. lol

Lorewise, I dont think you are a luxon. you're ally, but not a true luxon.
Think about what the priests say at the shrines when they turn you down for the blessing.
Its something like "you say youre allied to the luxons, but i know that at heart you're truely a kurzick" (actually im neither but w/e)

While I do see your point, I'd much rather see ANet putting their money to use for other things, like Guild Wars 2. A part of me wants to say that you're getting way too involved in this game, but I won't because I don't want to be a jerk. Truthfully, all of my characters have their own storylines and I go nuts with them. But again, I've always wondered what was up with those rhinkhal monitors in Blacktide Den. What are they? Why are they such a threat? But like I said, I'd rather ANet spent their money working on Guild Wars 2.

I have this problem too. I tried, but it didn't work out.

As I've said from the beginning, if you read my posts, I'm not saying this for Anet to change GW. I'm saying it so they think about GW 2 while they're programming it. I think this is the third time I've said it.

That said, none of these types of things are program intensive at all. The money/time involved in this is comparatively miniscule.

Still, I had no expectation about GW being fixed. I just want the issue raised so that, when GW2 is being coded, they can keep in mind that some players like the game to make sense. It doesn't have to be realistic, but it should be plausible.

If I thought they'd take me up on it, I'd be a story editor for them for free. lol