Something's wrong with Guild Wars storyline

**** SPOILERS INSIDE****


Well, well..I always had the impression something was wrong with Guild Wars. After killing the Charrs I had to kill the Stone Summit, then I had to kill Undead hordes, then my ex-White Mantle friends, then the Shining Blade traitor and the Mursaats.

Suddenly a guy called Vizier Khilbron appears from nowhere (almost) and becomes your closest ally. He's very fond of Zombies, Liches, Banshees, Ghouls, corruption of the flesh, plague and diseases in general but hey, you can't judge friends from their appearance, can you? Eventually, he'll reveal himself as the last boss, a kickass Lich with a low and raspy voice who wants to conquer the world using 5-6 Lvl24 Titans (each for region). Apparently, the Undead Lich is no general Eisenhower, because if 8 people can kill dozens of Titans in the last quest, you'd think more than 6 are required to rule the world.

I love this game but it probably has the worst storyline since Pokemon. I'm not a plot freak but a little more effort would've been highly appreciated.
For example, one horrible part of the game is undoubtedly the dialogue between the Seer and your group.

"I'm the Seer, I came here to help you"

"Where are you from again?"

"From far far away, but what's important is that I'm gonna help you."

"Heh. Nice. I'm listening"

"The Mursaats are bad and will beat the holy crap out of you if you're not infused."

"Yeah? So what?"

"So kill a sort of Ghost Squid in that cavern 50 mts away from here, bring me his remains and I'll infuse you."

"Okey dokey"



Well, maybe I simplified a bit, but that's about it.

Do some of you agree with me? No one expected a J.R.R.Tolkien work but at least something decent. This is no rant, just a curiosity...are you satisfied with Guild Wars story?

I don't mind it...It sure could be better though.

I want to know how the White Mantle somehow aquire the Chosen that I just saved in the previous mission to sacrifice in Bloodstone Fen. That makes absolutely no sense to me.

If you read the lore found in the manual, Vizier Khilbron is the guy who destroyed Orr by using some forbidden text to stop the Charr from overrunning the country.

Uhmm, the White Mantle got them when you brought them to that town along with the eye. You handed them over to them, it's all your fault they're dead

Well, you know...at least the game has a story? I mean, don't EQ or WoW don't have storylines at all? Of course, I've never played them, so I wouldn't know

If you look at all the Chosen wrapped in sticky spider goo, you'll realize that only one is still alive. The chosen you see in Bloodstone Fen are a second group that the Mantle brings.

And the storyline was good. I liked it.. I mean, I'd like the name of the game to actually mean something. It seems like we missed all the fun of the big GUILD WARS. We need a massive group of guilds rushing across the blasted lands of Ascalon to beat eachother to a bloody pulp.

Hmm, that got me thinking for a moment... what if the expansion involves going back in time? I sure wouldn't mind playing the Charr race (*hope hope*) as they invade from the north, causing the destruction of Orr, forcing Ascalon to build the wall, etc. The Guild Wars themselves didn't sound too appealing, a little too generic. Would knowing how the story is going to unfold detract from the enjoyment?

SPOILERS BELOW

what i want to know is: what the hell happens to ascalon? you never close that chapter. the charr are still on the brink of invasion, rurik is dead, and last we checked adelbern was still a stubborn asshole.

the dwarves get some closure. they retake thunderhead keep, and kill the summit leader. the krytans are freed from the tyranny of the white mantle, and assuming with the death of the lich they are freed from the undead hordes as well.

but nothing for ascalon... there should be at least one final mission or something where you and 7 other guys take on the entire charr army and tear them to pieces. or maybe you use the focus of the gods to put an end to all the flame keepers etc. whatever. at least something.. you know?

With luck they will pick up where they left off in the next one.. i agree that the story was a little.. um.. well it was fine, but i did not like the ending.. kinda made me feel like "i did all that work for this?"

ive always wanted to see ascalon rebuilt, i very much dislike the searing version, its too depressing... its true a lot of shoes were left untied, but maybe they wanted it that way to leave you on the edge of your seat for the next exciting episode of guild wars!

Psh. YOU dislike the Searing Version?

When I first got this game, I made a ranger. I then dyed him green to blend in with Ascalon so I could be a sneaky ranger.. Then I went post-searing. You cannot imagine how frustrated I was, a green ranger, running through this brown.. Destroyed.. Place.

yeah the storyline was kinda silly and easily predictable. not to boast but i knew that the guy who destroyed orr using the staff would become the final boss the moment i read the thing from the manual. every bit of the story is cliched and has been rehashed rpg after rpg after rpg

Hey actually a lot of the story is vague but you have to listen real well to pick up some things

First of all. In case you all don't know already, khilbron was the king of orr's personal adviser. He was also the reason that orr was destroyed (use of black magic to keep the charr out).

If you pay attention to the cutscenes he is mentioned several times. The people of kryta do not know that he was the cause of the destruction of orr (considering that almost no one survived and the ones that did had no clue what happened) and when he offers to help using the scepter of orr of course they are very happy about it considering that the shining blade is fighting an uphill battle.

Another thing you should know. The shining blade cannot litterally see the mursaat. Only the chosen can. Remember the line "the white mantle and their unseen gods"? The unseen gods are the mursaat obviously. Because we are chosen we can see the mursaat clearly which is exactly why the chosen are a threat to the mursaat. The chosen (all those people you tried to rescue) can see the mursaat and you can imagine why the mursaat do not want this.

Vizer khilbron was corrupt from the beginning, when the scepter resurfaced he saw a chance to rule tyria. He had a big problem tho. The white mantle and the mursaat. Only when the scepter came into his possession did he become uber powerful. He had a lot of good reasons to help the chosen. They could do what him and an entire race of seer's could not do, and that is destroy the mursaat.

Once the mursaat were wiped out khilbron had nothing to worry about. The scepter and the door of komalie (which btw is a gateway to hell or the equivalent in gw). Glint was very correct when it said that the door of komalie had the power to destroy good, evil, or both. The problem here is that how is one supposed to control near unlimited power? Well thanks to the scepter of orr, khilbron was powerful enough to control it.

Remember when he summoned the titan? He didn't know if he would be able to control them or not and was delighted when it worked. The flameseeker prophecies fortold of that but how is one truely to know for sure except try?

After Khilbron summoned the titan and realized his true power, that's when shit started going downhill for everyone else because he also had control of the 3 portals to ascalon, kryta, and the crystal desert. With this kind of power as all men eventually do he got RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOy, and when the chosen showed up to put him down he could not have cared less. He had plenty of things inbetween him and the chosen, not to mention rurik.

Well, we know how the story ends don't we?

Only, if you do the bonus.

Well as for storylines not being finished can you say expansion :O.

There probably won't be a d3 because they completely and utterly closed that storyline.

Theres no OMFG I JUST PWNED THE DEVIL LETS JAM THE STONE I IMPRISONED HIM IN INTO MY FOREHEAD! BRILLIANT!

We just slaughter all 3 of them there is no coming back.


But uh yeah the storyline is pretty korny, what can ya do though.

It's not THAT bad.

The lame thing I thought was like you LEAD the eye that picks out chosen and yet it somehow misses you, some say it's because you took a dip in the fountain but it's like bleh...

They'll probably do some stuff involving the seers race in the future.

uh


meaning not to drag this topic off topic, but storyline wise, there's the world to explore after the stone blew up with help of an certain angel. Noone knew what would happen if it blew up



back to GW the story will slowly be revealed to us via expansions, and eventually there'll be a stop to the expansions since there;s gonna be 'too much pve' for the pvpers that care only about HOH or even GVG and gonna whine about that.

Not quite. There are also a number of Chosen in the village you head to anyways. So either way you're killing Chosen.


And as for the Diablo comment, there's plenty of storyline now that the Worldstone is destroyed. If you didn't listen to Tyrael, he explained that with the Worldstone destroyed, the world was at the mercy of Hell and its minions. Sounds to me like some sort of.. World of Diablo MMO crap.

I'm pretty sure they're going to lean more toward Ascalon's storyline in the expansions.

I thought the storyline was all right, could've been much better. Could've been worse, though.

I can't wait to fight level 20-ish Charr, though. That's gonna be bad ass.

I love the battle at Thunderhead Keep. Instead of the Mursaat forming one large group of 50 and pound the hapless 8 adventurers to death, they decide to stroll in 1 or 2 at a time. Hey, no need to rush now is there?

i agree 100%! Although they may be doing wonders for the technological advancement of games with GW they (from my perspective) have done little to nothing for the artistic advancement of games...

My biggest gripe (the story is a pretty good one) is the horrible acting and the tacked on music (not sure if the dialogue script should go in with flaming the story or the acting.)

Well, if you're going for plot holes, then how about: How can the sceptor of Orr be used to rule Tyria when its only power is a 1 > increase in Energy regen? Gimme 2 necros, and some boddies, and I'll show you power!

Lack of lips moving in cinimatics also sucks.

Yeah the storyline was pretty bad, well...really bad. And really, really predictable.

I mean hell, as soon as you saw the Vizier I was like..."RIGHT...he's TOTALLY a good guy." It was just pretty...lame.

Kinda funny though, I still watch all the cutscenes.

That one.. With Evennia.. Oh, God. What were they thinking? That.. That was horrible. She threatened the Gods with one of the Gods himself as a Witness? What's she going to do? Defeat them with her horrible cutscenes? And why did everyone bow? God, that was stupid..

Haha, so true!

To the end of us all.

What was that? Some kind of melodramatic attempt to feel sorry for that poor, suicidal Ranger Saidra with a Russian accent? Hey, it's not my fault she couldn't keep the mursaat off longer than 2 seconds. She should have sticked with us.

No kidding. And why couldn't she be resed? Not like she was sacrificed on a bloodstone or anything..

I like to know how that started, I really do.

The Mursaat can be seen by everyone ... the founder of the White Mantle seen then, that shinny blade ranger see then (she charges to give us time) and that dwarf that also charges then in Ring of Fire also see then.

The white mantle bow to the mursaat in the cutscene in Dragon's Lair so I suspect they can see then.

Why people think they are invisible?

Either half of Tyria is chosen or I dont know ... people appear to have no problem in seeing the Mursaat ...

I think he just made that part up.. They're called the Unseen Gods because, well.. They don't really appear much, do they? They don't have any statues or monuments erected for them like the other Gods.
And if the Blade couldn't see the Mursaat, how the Hell did Evennia and Saidra see them? Or even the Dwarves? They'd be an unstoppable force and thrash through everything before you even Ascended.

Well, the story is lacking, that's for sure... But the part where Rurik got his head chopped off by that dwarf ... Priceless!

It's my favorite cutscene.

LOL, I'm sure many of us knew, even without reading the GW Manuscripts, that Vizier was no good. I haven't really read the book yet, but when I did the mission when he said "Give me the Scepter of Orr, and here, my undead buddies will help you." I thought - hmmmm, undead? Evil looking living corpse? Raspy voice? A name like Vizier? And you want me to give YOU this strong scepter? Our entire party was about to NOT give it to him, but we saw we had no choice. We were hesitant to hand that scepter over to him...

As for Ascalon, seriously. My whole guild and I are kind of like "???? What about the Charr!" We ran away and let them run loose, and now that we're strong and ascended, I'd like to march back over and beat down every last Charr. A few of us have gone back to the beginning missions just to see how fast we can kill them, and it used to be fun.. but lately, like in the wall mission where the Charr chase you, they've.. stopped.. chasing.. us.. I think they now what we're up to and they just crowd together and cower in fear until one of us strikes them, then they attempt to defend. It's hillarious, but also a little boring lol.

For all it's faults, you have to admit the people who made this game have a sense of humor.

In Kryta you risk your life to rescue this pig, but if you ever pay attention to the pig... it's invincible.

Then there's that one cutscene where the black White Mantle guy is telling his people how we betrayed them. That guy speaks very slowly and he has so freakin much to say... and he has that bobblehead thing going, and there's always one person who won't skip the scene.

And my favorite? Nolani Academy. Up until that point, you aggro a mob and it comes after you. So I, like so many others, entered the mission and was like 'Cool... a lever!' ...

well in my experience in mmorpg gameplay ... chapter 1 is always made easier for people to get the hang of a game .... the story line was a basic walk through and introduction to a small amount of guilds out there. Mantle, Shining Blade, Ascalonians, heck we even have foreshadow of Canthans. The Mursaat you know.

Here's a funny thing though ... the Shining Blade cannot go after the Mursaat because they are not the chosen, they are protectors of the chosen ... the Mursaat are enemies of the chosen and protectors of the Seal which keeps the titans locked. Heres where it gets funny, the White Mantle, who have absolutely nothing to do with the Mursaat ... team up with them ... the Mursaat who they cannot see. I mean unless of course the Mantle army is all Chosen? right? Highly unlikely .... anyways the story was predictable so we could have a bunch of 13 people saying how uber they are. lol ... I was in U/W with a monk who claimed he was the ultimate .... lol because he could survive against the Bladed Aatxe but do no damage lol ... and he healed no members lol ... yeah uber skills bud ...

another note I would like to see ... is the development of Ascalon Settlement ... I think it is a beautiful little set up they have and I hope it becomes a city in the future.

Stop takiing "Unseen Gods" literally! They're only unseen because they're hidden from everyone. They're not just walking down the street of Lion's Arch, they're tucked away in the jungles. The lore says that D'Alessio told everyone about the gods, and nobody believed him, because he was in the depths of the jungle when he first saw them, so of course nobody else would have seen them. They're sneaky, not invisible to all but the chosen.

All in all, the storyline is lacking, but I found it was enough to keep me going. I thoroughly enjoyed PvE.

Hey, you wanna REALLY mess up the storyline?

Go Pre-searing, find a buddy, both of you level up and go Over The Wall and take out the Charr... when you go to Academy they come back and sear the place anyway... THAT is a messed up storyline...

I did this, and watched, laughing, saying "but I KILLED those guys!"

I think I have a screen shot of it somewhere...

i noticed something else about that place... that little battle outside of town (the one with the charrs and people behind Cynn [sp?]) is gone when you go there... i was really wishing i could join in

on seared ascalon you can find MASSIVE skeletons in tar pits when i first saw these i was like 'wtf is that i didnt see a big creature pre searing were did this little fela come from...' wich continued into me naming it and wanting to keep it but thats not importanat, were did these bid skelatons come from?

those gigantic steletal remains are also visible in the depths of pre-seering catacombs... if you venture far enough.

theres also a colossal skull siting in plain view in the drognar's arena.

What I get:
The Mursaat are the 'Unseen Gods'
Only those with 'True Sight' can see them
Chosen have 'True Sight'
Saul D'Alessio could see the Mursaat.

Saul D'Alessio, founder of the White Mantle, must have been a Chosen.

What I don't get:
Why the White Mantle are not RECRUITING the Chosen.
Alright, in fairness, the recruited your party... and then tried to have them killed by the Shining Blade, no doubt because they knew you were Chosen.
Why? Because you could lead the Eye of Janthir through the countryside.
Otherwise, why wouldn't Justiciar Halbion have done it?
Because he's not Chosen.
The Eye looks into someone to see if they have the gift of true sight, it makes sense that only someone with true sight could take it with them.

The Shining Blade themselves could not fight the Mursaat, for few of their numbers would have True Sight. But a sympathetic white mantle (possibly Evennia ... and Saidra too) could have left the ranks seeing what happens on the Bloodstones, and founded the organization.
They took to saving the Chosen, not to use them as a weapon against the Unseen Gods, merely to protect them. Any later motives would probably not be there upon the founding.


My questions:
I didn't finish the game yet (stuck in T.H.Keep), but I heard something suggesting Vizier (which, by the way, seems to me to be a rank not a name) Khilbron and the Seer were of the same people... can THAT race see the Mursaat? Or is that why they failed in destroying the Mursaat?
How did the Shining Blade learn to travel through the Maguuma? I have a theory that they did the same way the Druids learned... but then where are the Druids? And who were they?
Did the Mursaat get them? It says they disappeared 10 years before...
And if the Mursaat did get them (the Druids), then why didn't they take the Henge of Denravi for a stronghold?
Who was Denravi, anyways? Is it a river? A famous Druid?
What happened to the Charr?

(The Druids and the epilogue of the Charr I'm hoping will be in the expansion.)


I have a couple problems with the storyline:
1. Rurik is a ponce.
2. Jalis Ironhammer is Rurik's dwarven counterpart in that he runs ahead and tends to cost you the mission if you're not careful.
3. Evennia ran around a muddy jungle in WHITE and appears stainless everytime you see her.
4. She is in the same linen outfit in the freezing Shiverpeaks.
5. Rurik is a ponce.
6. We left Ascalon to fend off the Charr for itself, taking the Ascalon Vanguard (Rurik's army) with us.
7. We have to pay a Canthan for an island right off our own coast.
8. Rurik is a ponce.
9. Scorpions.
9.5. The FlameSeeker Prophecies could have been further influenced. I.E. ACTUALLY HEARING THEM!
10. Adelbern is a ponce.

It's supposed to be a little classic horror device; you know the guy's the main villain, and you know he's up to no good, but your "character" in game is clueless...Besides, the Shining Blade introduce him as the guy who can help turn the tide against the genocidal White Mantle.

Look, I'm not saying the storyline is superb, but it does draw you in and make you part of it - something no other online RPG has done to date.

In every other title they give you the grandeur and godliness of all those around you, then "allow" you to scuttle about in their world right along with the hermit crabs and moss and bracken.
In EQ and EQ2, no matter how godly, high and mighty, or simply death incarnate you become, they make certain you KNOW you aren't fit to kiss Firiona Vie's pinky ring.

In Guild Wars, you're not just part of the story, it depends on you - Prince Rurik doesn't fare too well in the Shiverpeaks, (or later) and YOU are all that stands between oblivion and a glimmer of hope for Ascalon.

Obviously you either didn't pay attention to this, or perhaps YOU just don't get it.
Anyway, the story we're given is all the better because we are part of the telling of it. Don't like it? YOU make it better.

Btw, my addition to the "storyline" is superb! (just ask me - I'll tell you)

Edit: Postscript: The posts above demonstrate a willingness to "SKIP" the cinematic scenes. If you actually READ the text on various markers, PAY ATTENTION to the conversations between major NPCs and occasionally READ the mission and quest descriptions...IT ALL MAKES SENSE.

I suppose paying to have someone "rush" you through the game is the cause of this...jeez...

Talesin

Vizier is indeed a title, he is referred to as "Vizier Khilbron" jsut as we say "Prince Rurik". Same thing. The Seer is of an alien race - not from Orr.

They learned from the druids - those spirits you encounter in the last missions before leaving the mainland.

The White Mantle and Musraat don't fare well in the jungle - that is actually evident in the storyline. You did play through this part of the game didn't you?

Enter the Henge of Denravi and see for yourself.
Nothing. They conquered Ascalon and are attempting to finish off the few humans remaining. Perhaps in later expansions we'll learn how KING Adelbern and his army fared?

What the hell is a ponce?
Thats called "magic" buddy...
No doubt standing next to your warrioress friend in the gladiator bikini? And the problem is?
And leaving King Adelberns army behind; did you happen to watch the scene after you helped Rurik reclaim Rin? What exactly transpired between son and father there? hmm...
The Flameseeker prophesies are spoken by a half dozen NPCs throughout the game - beginning in the pre-searing. Too bad they didn't just hand you the Cliff's notes, eh?
First, wtf is a ponce? Second, its KING Adelbern.

Tal

The charrs attack was stopped by the white mantle. If you read the manual it talks about how d'alessio formed the white mantle and halted the charr offensive.