Guild Wars "original" storyline

Ok, in general i do like playing a non-PvP videogame, just like many other people in the world.

Why? Because of its origional, interesting plotline and its gameplay.

Ok, then it really bothers me that people don't play PvE for its origional intent-to get the player intrested in a plotline. GuildWars has barely ANY good plotline at all!

Im sure at the start, with all of their script writers-that the story origionally had a half-decient plot. But seriously-who here actually plays PvE for the intentionally "dramatic" plot line!? Everyone that plays PvE now is just in it for the leveling up, building up your character, and collecting items with your firends. [or thats why i PvE]

And that is what bothers me. Guild Wars [im sure along with many other MMORPG's] introduce a really unintenionally boring story-with a low budget to actually focus on any part of that!

Ok-well im sure most of you reading this are thinking, "Guild Wars has a great plot line! With all the betrayl and um....Rurik dying.." But seriously, what origional things does GW's give you? Well, you start off with a group of rebels- who go off to settle in a distant land. You encounter places like the desert, the jungle, valcano islands, and back to the Icy region in an expansion...

Does anyone find that remotely anything like DIABLO 2?!?!?!?! You start off in a rebel camp-go through the desert-through the jungle-and into the valcanic parts of hell to banish the Evil demon from the prophecies, only later to come to a barbaric icy level to fight an evil force rising to power?!?!

Ok, and the only difference is the constant switching of sides your character performs.
You follow your prince Rurik -after finding that your king betrays you.
Then he dies and you follow the white mantle -who betray you.
Then you follow your friends in the jungle -one of which betrays you.
Then you follow this guy who can summon demons -you follow him like a puppet untill he betrays you!!
And all in all-you follow the only good figure in the game {glint}.... AND YOU KILL HER AS A BONUS!!!

Am I the only one who thinks this "plot" is that your this stupid He-Man, who runs around distroying the enemies of those who manipulate you. There is no character personality, you cant chose your decisions, you have no internal weakness-any internal plot!!! WHERE is the climax!! When you kill the leach!?

Seriously! I could've thought of a better plotline that people actually had some interest in...

Also, the special effects of the cinemas SUCK! They freaking make an explosion look like the metal's made of LEGOs! The lips of people never move!

And its always either overdramatic[the random explosion of the king when rurik says his decision is foolish///when that chick that no one even remembers was kidnapped in the shiverpeaks] or underdramatic [when the leach betrays them, and they dont even give a shit].

In addition! People are always saying that Guild Wars is better than World o' Warcraft because in WoW you cant change the world. You beat the hardest quest in the game-killing some super hard boss thing- and he comes back as soon as you kill him.....Why do people say Guild Wars doesnt do this?!!!?!? Sure, Guild Wars has a definate end point of the story-but you CANT change the game. In fact, the only change in the enviornment that EVER changes is when you get out of Pre-searing....Honestly-When it comes to the storyline GW's has an equal-or worse-plot than another MMO...

Maybe people would have higher standerds of PvE if the plot of it wasnt freaking stupid.

EDIT: Please do not try to avoid the word filters again. We are a lenient board with minimal filtering, but this post will be closed if you can't abide by the rules.

So much betrayal! Our chatacters must feel like a real gullible nincompoop. But seriously, I admit there are many flaws in the plot, but the major problem comes from our characters not having any real personalities, or at least we were not able to produce these real personalities on screen. In anycase, its not something that many games could accomplish either, so I couldn't blame Anet. Another thing is that we've only began to play chapter 1, if chapter 2 is in anyway a continuation of the plot line (ie. the future of Ascalonians?), then perhaps it is too early to judge. If not, then ya, this PVE plot line is pretty shaky if not down-right weak..

anet knows their plot line is weak hopefuly they will change all that. In the next chapter.

well obviously someone didn't check out the game very well. I must admit that the plot is a little corny at times....however, I must say that the real reason (as it was origonally intended) to play PvE was to unlock skills and upgrades for PvP. However, (as a PvE player myself) I must say that yes there is a bit of a D2X aspect to the game when you just power-level and farm. However, unlike D2X, there are far more missions and quests. The story line doesn't only follow the Heroes of Ascalon, but also many minor characters as well. As for that "freaking stupid" remark, I have to completely disagree with you. If you're looking for a "Totally-Awesome-Uber-Cool" plot, go check out a movie. Then come back and play some more Guild Wars.

speel check, do you speek it?

may want to mention spoilers above...

also
*lich*

my climax was the thing you kill before the lich. It makes playing the rest of the game past the southern shiverpeaks well worth it >

I agree. Those Armageddon Lords are a challenge and a treat to kill. I'm still waiting for them to make Chaos Titans.

I think everyone views are important. however it has been talk about before anet knows this. I am new to this thread so i am not sure if they have talked about it here.

i disagree with the op. the storyline is the only thing that kept me from throwing the game into my crap drawer,and the lvl 20 cap helped alot too. i have WoW. i played it for like a week. then in it goes to my crap drawer. havent touched it ever since. thinking of the aimless grinding alone makes me shiver. i also wanna add that i used to play diablo alot. as many of you may already know that d2 also has a great storyline. cow level made lvling really ez. so its kinda like guildwar in terms of ez lvling. i guess my point is i cannot play a mmorpg that doesnot have a cinematic storyline.

Not an excuse for an obviously rushed and lacking plot. If there's any game that proves that an MMORPG can have an extraordinary, brilliant storyline, regardless of your character not having any pesronality at all, it's FFXI. Some proclaim it has the best storyline out of the entire Final Fantasy series. If FFXI can make a storyline of that caliber, why can't Guild Wars make a half decent one?

I meant something else. You know, the boss you cap hundred blades from D:

Though the armageddon lords were pretty fun too.

The Guild wars plot line and lore goes much deeper then everyone thinks... i'd hate to "Promote" another forum but that other major guild wars fansite's forum has an entire forum area devoted to the lore and history of guild wars.

Yeah, Yeah...I am a complainer. I know that. But mainly its because i'm really into guild wars, having played 1550 hours. And I find that the best way to try to change something isnt to "suggest nicely if maybe its possible that chapter 2 has a more interesting story line" but to give actual critism to it.

Err...like i said-the script writers might have had a really good plot line origionally, but their ablility to actually portray that in the cinemas is really bad!

No, it's true. The GW plot line sucks. In fact, it's horrendous. The fact that they have to resort to "lore" in order for the story to actually make sense further shows up how bad the plotline is. WoW's is a little better, but not much. I've never played through FFXI so I can't speak for that, but all the FF games I played did have a reasonably good plotline. However if you really want a good plotline to compare it with, read all of Tolkien's works starting with The Silmarillion. No, watching the Lord of the Rings movies doesn't count.

Guild Wars teaches the like lesson of "don't trust anyone" because they betray you... really.

On a more serious note, after three runs thorough the entire story line I would say the story is not that bad. It just gets repetitive if you do it for a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth time.

Also, it is mainly because many people read FAQs and such and know the story beforehand that it becomes less interesting. When I created my first character I took my time and didn't really bother with guides.

On my second character I tok roughly 1/10 the time per each mission and quest.

The point being: this is why people should not get run, you miss out on the story and also on the fun.

That's cause reading is fun-dimental. Seriously don't people read any of the text that NPC's say in the mision outpost, in the missions, or in the book that came with the game/monuments/god's statues? Most of the story can be found there. Oh and also in the text for the quests. You know that squggley stuff that is there before you click on that large green check mark.

Most of it is there. Just read it.

About the whole FFXI story line. I played through FFXI for one year and did several of the story elements. The thing is you really had to search for the people to give out quests/missions and how to complete them. Other than guides online that made them easy there was nothing guiding you. I would like to see that in more games like GW/WOW. NO MORE GREEN EXCLAMTION POINTS/ARROWS/STARS ON THE MAP!!

Oh well...all we can do is wish that they fix it in chapter 2, lol.

You have to consider that guildwars has no online fee, while FFXI has a online fee that allows better graphics and storyline. The thought of of it allows them to plan things out alot more. Also consider this is the first time they made a game of the sorts (sure alot of them are from diablo/wc/sc dev teams).

In the coming chapters I am sure they will do better on everything.

~Konohamaru

LMAO, there is always someone who always throws in the fact that guild wars has no monthly fee! I honestly think that its around the same effort, creating a bunch of smaller games every 6 months than it is to create 1 big game, that you have to pay for every month....but im not an administrator or anything-so how should i know?


Oh, and the graphics for GW's is 10000 better than FFXI, and its style is better than WoW {in my opinion}

I do love the graphics and the way they have things set up for the most part. I am also sorry for being that one person, but I tend to say some stuff that comes to my mind ^^.

~Konohamaru

I'm going to quit Guild Wars because the story is bland. I'll just ignore how much FUN the GAMEPLAY is, because I expect this GAME to be on par in every aspect with a NOVEL.

Am I the only one who looks at the cutscenes and can't help but laugh at how ridiculous it all looks to have dramatic voice acting mixed with stone-still faces? The in-game engine simply doesn't lend itself well to making the story involving.

Yeah, I was going to mention this as well. The 'archaeological' work that some players have done is dizzying. Seriously. The devs created a game with a lot of subtext and dots to connect.

There are clues all over the world that players have used to construct speculative but plausible backstories between Saul D'Allessio, the Mursaat, the Charr, the Titans, etc. I think that the game developers have given us a slice of a much bigger story. Alot of people say that the story is weak, and that there's no reason to explore. Looking at the work some others have done, I'd say that thorough exploration can illuminate many details that many of us walk right past.

To me, that's a lot cooler than having flashier cinematics.

Yes, because everyone here is clearly boycotting the game rather than offering criticism in the interests of improving it.

I must be easy to please or something then because I thought the story was pretty good.

Part of the problem is that most of the story is exposed via cutscenes, and most people skip cutscenes.

First time through I was thorougly confused by the time I got to the jungle as to who was who, why we were helping people we were just fighting, why we are fighting people we were just helping and so on.

I gave up and just followed the missions to get past it and look at the pretty scenery.

My thoughts on this:


Storyline in RPGs is always something that many people talk about.


I will agree with the statemente that the actual story in Guild Wars is not good. It's alright. Nothing memorable. Yes, it's flawed, yes it's cheesy and the voice acting is a hit or miss and not everything works, but sometimes it works. Sometimes there are some decent plot points or cool moments happening. I sorta felt cool when I came to Kryta and got the feeling of making a new life there, and I enjoyed the characters I was introduced to in the Breach and in Piken Square, so on.
But it's by no means anything speciel.
However, what I will say is that I think the "Lore" is awesome. The actual world; the gods, the wars, the lands, the monsters, creatures and so on. I like Tyria and the hole concept of it, and I think it's a great building block.


I think the actual problem with all of this was that GW didn't needed all this stuff like voice acting or constant use of cut scenes. I think the game would have been much more effective if you ripped does off and sticked to something you knew would work well. Trying to focus on a good script, and so on.

Sometimes a story that is open to be analysed with different possible conclusions can be more satisfying that one that is not. That's not th say that the developers should leave the players in the dark with a major cliff hanger, but I do think that saying less and expanding the conclusion can be better.

One of the major points I think is that GW just follows the avarage mold. It's clichee and simple and none of the characters feel speciel. At the same time, GW has a hard time. It's probably very hard for the game to make a story quality of a dynamic single player RPG.

I think GW could have worked great with just a main narrator, and in game stuff being open to analysed.

I also think that "reading" in GW can be a hazzle. I often thought that the NPCs speech bobbles where very hard to read. In fact I also think that about reading others in the cities.

Definitely! I would always stay behind and read everything while everybody else is killing all the monsters.

There definitely is story in GW, but it's more of a "slice" of a bigger whole. There's so much potential for the GW world. I just feel that ANet could integrate it better.

The text bubbles were annoying too, if you missed something an NPC said, you missed it (Or you just have to wait an insanely long time for it to repeat).

Well, the story isnt best I've seen but it is not worst. But what really disturbs me is that npc's and your character's faces dont move while you or npc speak.

Most the real stroy comes from the quests and the NPC's you speak to, The should redo the cutscenes with a bit more flair, and have more then just the leader of the group talk. although I do not know what that would do to solo runs >_>

Maybe remaking Rurik as a bit more noble, and not so much a smart ass, "I defend ascalon from another Charr invasion, heh, and my father trifals with doors!" Its a bit corny, and stating the obvious.

Another thing is, Ascalon is so depressing, every NPC you talk to is like "times are tough, we'll probably die tomorrow, oh woe is me" and the only character that really wants to get things on track is Alderbern, and he is bypolar >_< talking one minute loosing his temper the next.

I gave up on the story and resorted to writing my own lore involving my guild going through the story, this allows me to open up the amin characters more, remove the stupid things and rewrite them to better more plausible speeches. It also lets me give each character personality, instead of "Thats the new bad guy? ok Me kill him"

Err...i hate it that you have to TRY to get a good story line at what they throw out at you.

i have responded to a similar thread way back. i agree completely that the storyline is terrible. it just lacks structure. there is no progress (unless you call leveling-up story structuring). characters appear and then later forgotten forever, most conflicts are never resolved fully, there is no closure from beginning to end. so you end up with a plot that only serves the transportation of characters to different gameplay environments.

here is a very similar plot, yet this time it is STRUCTURED:

1. ascalon is in ruins, the char are kicking ass in a huge war.

2. the characters try to help and win this war, but somehow they cannot. the char seem invincible.

3. the characters are sent to kryta, to seek advice from a legendary wizard, on how to defeat the char.

4. the wizard (extra points for guessing who this guy will be) tells them they have to kill the skeleton lich and destroy his magical (insert char-helping magical device here). but first, they must go to the desert and ascend.

5. the characters embark on a journey all the way to the ring of fire in order to destroy that one object and kill the lich (who turns out to be the same wizard who sent them on this quest.)

6. the characters RETURN TO ASCALON, for one final mission, to kill the char king.

7. the end.

we can argue about this plot forever, but at least it provides closure to the entire story and not just the past 4 missions.

the point is, i spat this one out in less than a minute. give me a week and i'll come up with something much better. i am sure anet's group of professional story developers can create a wonderful plot. i'm just disappointed they didn't.

And in those weird moments when you can't go anywhere, and rurik is talking up a storm about how great you are for being a level one going into post. Or when rurik does no spams his battlecry "For ascalon!" again and again.

And then theres those boring missions like the ones in Kryta that keep going on and on and on "go put the thingie into the thinge well of truth so it can be clean from some power we can't identify."

Man the story is weak, but the gameplay is top of the notch.

I didnt play just for level, with my first character, I really enjoyed the storyline, I felt it was v. good compared to other online games.