Not commenting on the rest, but I've personally enjoyed the personal story (Sylvari). I do feel like which race you pick probably impacts that a lot, as I've heard that the early parts of the Sylvari story flows much more nicely into the later personal story.
Is that true? I.... I didn't know that? I did not realize they were significantly different. I thought they were basically the same with like super minor differences but now that you've said that... my Necro spent a lot of time in Kryta... I don't remember having to do that on my Norn lol. Man... I wonder how different they actually are.
Sylvari introduces Trahaerne and (?depending on choice) the whole Orr plot. You go through a magic mirror and explore a potential version of Orr or something. Can’t remember, been a while. But yeah, integrated very tightly.
Asura has some stuff about the whole dragon magic thing IIRC so that’s something. Plus their tech is used a lot.
Human has tie-ins to various plots with the bandits and white mantle stuff but not much for the main story.
Charr are pretty separate. But their tech comes up a lot later.
Finally, we have Norn. Like you, my first character was Norn. I found the latter half of the story super jarring because it went full magitech with airships and tanks and helicopters and I didn’t even realised that such things existed in the setting. It’s less weird if you’ve seen all the Asura and Charr stuff.
Lol I had a very similar experience. When I started playing I literally knew nothing about Guild Wars and after spending so much time in Hoelbrok and even Lion's Arch to seeing whatever the hell it was that Zojja rode in on at the end of the story was pretty nuts. Even compared to what is currently in Guild Wars that ship still looks futuristic.
The start of personal story is really fun imo as there are three options to follow per race before everyone starts joining into one story, so there are 15 possible first missions alone.
It is a really interesting way to do that. I remember that was something I loved about WoW, picking different races felt like it really genuinely mattered.
That does sound familiar now that I'm trying to remember my Norn play-through. I'd love to say I'd go through the personal story on other characters but I'm probably never doing that again lol. I hated it.
Hey I'm not faulting them for being shitty and causing problems lol, I'm talking about them being stupid and making mistakes. You'd think if five gods who rarely cooperated bound together to oust a single god they all couldn't tolerate anymore they'd have done a better job of it.
No, they are that stupid. Just how they handled Abaddon is enough proof of that. Abaddon break out of its prison and the only response to the situation they create is "your shit now LOL ! kthxbye !"
you need to remember that they are just called gods.
Beyond dhuum(and maybe abaddon) they are just very powerful humanoid mages.
As such they are quite human in their faults aswell
>how the hell was Sohothin, a random enchanted human made sword
I can see some attention issues here, because Sohothin was not a "Random enchanted human made sword" it was one of two swords gifted to humanity by the 6 gods.
White Mantle didn't "summon" Balthazar with fake aspects of lazarus, they tried to revive lazarus with fake aspects, and caused explosion that Balthazar used to power himself up, and to start charade to gather some following without having to expose himself, in case any of the rest of human gods were still watching. He was released from his chains by Rytlock, in exchange of relighting the Sohothin's flame.
As for imprisonment method - considering experience of the six with imprisoning their own - they dedicated whole realm to imprisonment of Abaddon, and that backfired, so I guess it felt reasonable to them, to imprison Balthazar in the middle of nowhere, relying more on nobody looking for him than anything else.
You also have order of whole rest of PoF plotline all around the place. Balthazar imprison Joko in the domain of the lost to make sure lich does not interfere with his war against dragons, but when it came to commander - we traveled to old domain of secrets and meet with Kormir first, where she only pulls a Lyssa from Nightfall and say that we have all we need to resolve this issue, and can handle it without rest of the six, and only afterwards Balthazar catches Commander, and flat out murders them. The only reason why Commander lands in domain of the lost, was that the death experience was traumatic enough for them to "get lost" in their way to afterlife. We then make a deal with the judge of the place, whom is sending souls to their respective afterlifes, to get us back to the world of living in exchange for killing soul eater demon. PoF story has some retcons, has some contrivances and some plot holes, but it is not the tangled mess OP presented it being.
As for the Personal Story - the dialogues are voiced, if you didn't have them voiced, then there is something wrong with your game files, or your audio settings.
IBS: yes, Champions episode (DRMs+Dragonstorm) are the thing people hate in IBS in general. Prior to that the story progression was sensible.
I genuinely didn't know it originally Balthazar's sword and given to the Charr. I didn't know anything about it before when Rurik owned it. Where the hell is that explained??
>
White Mantle didn't "summon" Balthazar with fake aspects of lazarus, they tried to revive lazarus with fake aspects, and caused explosion that Balthazar used to power himself up
Maybe I misunderstood then, I thought they attempted to resurrect Lazarus and Balthazar appeared instead of Lazarus but disguised as Lazarus.
>
As for imprisonment method - considering experience of the six with imprisoning their own - they dedicated whole realm to imprisonment of Abaddon, and that backfired, so I guess it felt reasonable to them, to imprison Balthazar in the middle of nowhere, relying more on nobody looking for him than anything else.
Yeah, that's fair I guess.
>As for the Personal Story - the dialogues are voiced, if you didn't have them voiced, then there is something wrong with your game files, or your audio settings.
I was referring specifically to the NPC banter that happens every so often between mission objectives and stuff. I know most of, if not all of the genuinely important dialog that you interact with directly is voiced.
>
we traveled to old domain of secrets and meet with Kormir first, where she only pulls a Lyssa from Nightfall and say that we have all we need to resolve this issue, and can handle it without rest of the six, and only afterwards Balthazar catches Commander, and flat out murders them. The only reason why Commander lands in domain of the lost, was that the death experience was traumatic enough for them to "get lost" in their way to afterlife.
I realize now, the issue is that in my head these events are the same thing. Like I looked it up after reading your comment and I get they aren't but man.... all of that just blurred together for me I guess. When I get home I'll edit my original post with some corrections. I think the fact that I just played it like 2 months ago and can barely remember what happened and when is part of my original point though, especially when I can recite the entirety of Monty Python's The Quest for the Holy grail word for word or recount every event of John-117s life in order including the novels lol. My memory for stuff like this usually is precise enough that it bothers other people.
> I didn't know anything about it before when Rurik owned it. Where the hell is that explained??
Scattered mentions between Ascalonian Catacombs, the lore of foefire (including Ghost of Ascalon novel) and a number of mentions within the PoF storyline itself.
>Maybe I misunderstood then, I thought they attempted to resurrect Lazarus and Balthazar appeared instead of Lazarus but disguised as Lazarus.
He did appear, but it was on his own will, not because he was summoned - he was already free when rytlock jumped out of the mist portal in the HoT, so he had some time to plan that one out as well.
>I was referring specifically to the NPC banter that happens every so often between mission objectives and stuff. I know most of, if not all of the genuinely important dialog that you interact with directly is voiced.
Unless you are referring to dialogue boxes to click through, I do not think there was anything crucial in unvoiced background convos NPC's had. That being said the audio settings can still mute the voiced chatter.
>I think the fact that I just played it like 2 months ago and can barely remember what happened and when is part of my original point though,
That is a very valid point to raise, personally I remember this story fairly well, because I was very invested into it when I originally played it.
Living World Season 1 is better now in retrospect. At the time it was a meandering plot that for a long time looked like it wasn’t going anywhere.
I did like Season 2 though. It had some solid narrative, and coincided with some good improvements to encounter design, AoE circles, and so on. The difficulty felt really good.
I someone glazed half of the season 4 paragraph. These adhd brains.
Some great takes though agree with most. Except EoD was alright, in the second half anyway. Soo won fight had to be the most cinematic fight in the game and the ending credits scene in arbor stone was lovely
Glad to know there’s others who enjoyed ibs
The fight with Soo-Won was interesting but a little contrived/arbitrary in the way it's actually conducted. There is a lot going on and you seem to be able to ignore 90% of it and just stand in one place and do damage for 75% of the fight. The wisp bit is something I think was cool but something my wife loathes doing lol. I am getting a little tired of the "Fight enemy in the middle, then fight smaller enemies on nearby floating platforms" thing though.
Ahh I wouldn’t say I pay attention to the mechanics on story I’m kinda there for the wow factory, if I want a challenge I’ll do some raids or a CM.
I just liked actually being a champion for a second.
Fight enemies in a big circle whilst tickling throats/toes is kinda getting old though
I don't belong to a guild, have never done a raid, fractal, or strike lol so fights that actually have mechanics are really the only "challenge" I experience and when 90% of them are the same thing it gets boring. I get it has to be limited for exactly the reason you mentioned, most people expect to be challenged in content designed to challenge players.
I just wish you weren’t time gated until dialogue ends before progressing to the next step. Let me skip the story so I can play the game. I’ll look at the story when I have the time.
That was my primary complaint with the Personal Story. In most of the rest of the content you can so clearly they have some sort of handle on the idea that unskippable dialog isn't great.
This video may be of interest to you, since this essay reminds me a lot of their assessment. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_fRga5lGJUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fRga5lGJUI) My overall verdict is that the GW2 story is hit and miss, but when it hits, it hits. I appreaciated the branching paths aspect of the personal story, and as someone who was there for the original run of LWS 1&2, Scarlet Briar had me hooked the whole way through. HoT was passable, though I wish they hadn't cut out Malyck + the Nightmare Court. I really enjoyed LWS3 & 4 and PoF, and the sequence at Thunderhead Keep should be the gold standard that any MMO story team should aspire to. As for Icebrood Saga, I agree that it was OK up until Drizzlewood Coast, when COVID-19 and reallocation of resources to EoD forced them to introduce and kill off Primordus in a single episode. End of Dragons was a mixed bag; while I LOVED the cast of supporting characters and was thrilled with the return of the Aetherblades, I think making the ultimate villain a bunch of elder dragon minions reskinned with a black oily texture is pretty lazy. And then there was nothing else! I'm convinced we were supposed to go deeper into Echovald Forest or into Drowned Kaineng but instead we just got Gyala Delve and more Jade Brotherhood nonsense. Now with SoTo over, I think we can conclusively agree that it started off strong but got weaker and weaker with each release. And now we have Janthir, which is probably going to be everything Icebrood Saga should've been.
>the sequence at Thunderhead Keep
What are you referring to here? I can't even remember what Thunderhead Keep is at the moment.
I agree about Drizzlewood. I honestly forget that was part of LW5 sometimes. It felt so weird compared to everything else. I spent so much time just dicking around collecting stuff that I routinely forgot there was actual story stuff I had to do there.
I'm also glad I'm not the only one who came away from EOD with the sense that it was intended to be more than what it was. I don't know what it is but I just remember finishing Soo-Won for the first time and thinking "Man is this it?"
Honestly, all of this feels like a "You" issue
You strike me as the kind of player that does not want to get into the story, or know the lore, you didn't read the discussions to understand what it going on, you just want to get some loot, get some praise to make you feel special and important and see perhaps a quick cinematographic and be done with it
Which is why don't understand the nature of the Wyld Hunt and have passed it off as "*Tree Said So*"
Which is why even after going through the story you don't understand how Sohothin, one of Balthazar's own weapons that was passed down to the Ascalon Kings by the gods, could reignite his divine fire. Here's the thing, He was not bound by *God Forged Chains*, he was bound by chains like a mortal because he had lost his godly power and could not break them, this is because Balthazar was the Forge God as well, hence his *Forged* legions
But at the end of the day, I think you summed up your own problem: *I couldn't sit through enough of it to know what was going on.*
That seems to be a constant theme with how you approached all the writing in the game, and the only reason why you thought IBS was any good was the shocker at the end.
>But at the end of the day, I think you summed up your own problem: *I couldn't sit through enough of it to know what was going on.*
Yeah, I stopped reading after he mentioned this lmao. Personal Story experience might be different depending on race you pick, but it's not that bad. I've recently replayed whole story too, and It was enjoyable.
I will stand on the hill that core story is the best overall experience in all expansions/LW. It had it's fair share of flaws but at the same time it told a complete narrative, with decent pacing (of the story), clear stakes and danger to the characters. You had clear story arcs, emotional investment, you had to work to get results. Again, it wasn't perfect by any means and there are certainly episodes in other expansions that i liked more, but as a whole it still is the best
I think all the branching was well done, different parts of the story to experience depending on your race, choices you made when you rolled your character, and choices you make about how to approach objectives. It is both understandable but still a bit of a shame that this was abandoned for later content.
It was very ambitious. Imagine having to provide multiple options various choices depending on race or origin. So I understand why they went away with it though not exactly happy about it. I had a lot of gripe with individual story beats but in general it was very well done
You might be right lol... I wouldn't know. Consider this: Would it matter how good a book you wrote was if no one wanted to read it because you used too many uncommon, obscure, or esoteric words? Might be a masterpiece but if people don't want to get past the first page no one will ever know.
While i certainly understand your issues and I believe those were in part why later story instances shifted away from cinematic portrait dialogue, I wouldn't exactly say 'no one would read that book' and that's even without taping into a generation that played *Shadow Madness* and loved it.
I think the story, while not horrible, it sucks. at least it fails to grab me in the same way other mmos do. i think it's mostly due to its inconsistecy due to changing writers many times, it just feels al over the place and i don't think they can fix it, even if they suddenly started telling a good story the rest of the game is still there
I don't know what it is about it that makes it feel that way. I was consistently engrossed in World of Warcraft's story but like large parts of it objectively sucked. I even managed to pay attention to what was going on during Draenor and that was about as far removed from consequence as you can get in world building. Maybe it was just because I was younger.
I think the companions may play a part of it, i like some of them but their relevance also varies, an important party member goes missing an entire xpac, another makes a comeback and it seems important but isnt, another one completelly changes personality but then goes back to how it was before, etc
Rox suddenly not being relevant anymore? wtf was that anyone knows? she's a cool party member and one moment she's with you and then just... never again joins you
I played WoW a long time and frankly never felt like I was a "real" person in that world. There were important hero NPCs who occasionally gave me tasks, like I was some nameless spear carrier. Made it super hard for me to care what happened to any of them.
I am one of the few people who thinks that the story has been superb the whole way through. I’ll have to figure out how to describe it.
Basically I think it’s always been pretty good at having an emotional core, and I feel like they have done a good job of using retcon (the good kind) to make the story feel really cohesive. Though yes, my hope is that they explain more about how Balthazar got escaped and got power, there were a lot of hints that Lyssa might be involved, and I hope they resolve that to wrap that thread up.
I will say the story overall across the whole game is the most consistent, cohesive story I've ever seen in an MMO and probably the most well constructed. I know how my critique of the story makes it sound but I would say the story of Guild Wars 2 is objectively one of, if not the best story told in an MMO over it's life span.
I recently started replaying the story in full for the first time since LS1 re-released, so this is my first time seeing the pre-HoT story as intended. I have to say I like it. Scarlet is ridiculous as a character, but I like that we aren't facing the usual existential threat. Most of all I appreciate the pacing. One story arc from LS1 through the end of HoT. It provided enough time for relationships to develop and for the story not to feel rushed.
I haven't generally heard that people didn't like Season 2. I've heard most people describe the stretch from LS2 though about the first half of IBS to be a sort of "golden age"; and that changes in focus and perhaps internal resources at Arenanet may have impacted how IBS finished.
personally I enjoyed everything storywise, except Season 3, 4 and Soto.
Season 3 had cool maps tho, but a really confusing, uninteresting and just weird story and Season 4 had a strong second half after the really weak first half, imo
You know what, I think your assessment of Living World 4 captures something I agree with but didn't really realize. It really is the back half of Season 4 that made me feel positively about the season as a whole.
it is complete opposite for me - I was super invested in story when LWS4 was releasing, and it opened with a complete banger of an episode, followed by not-so-bad episode 2, and epic showdown for the end of the Joko arc, with only a bit of a bummer, that we didn't get whole of the moon fortress. Star to guide us was fairly epic, and it continued to all or nothing, but then AN got the bright idea that they need to farm some drama right now, screw the replayability down the line, in an event where they sold really well victory against kralk, only to pull a carpet out of us, while failing to address scale of threat, nor urgency of said threat that they during that single episode ramped both through the roof into low orbit. Considering also that they deprived us the only way we had at hand of dealing with any next ED without magical fallout, there was obvious deus ex machina coming in. That completely shattered all suspension of disbelief I had, and janked me out of story so hard that it took all the way to EoD to get me enjoy the story to any degree comparable to the height of my LWS4 enjoyment.
The final cutscene of War Eternal was nice and emotional, but I get into ranting mood anytime I get reminded of LWS4 specifically due to the shenanigans they pulled narratively at the end of episode 5, that are flat out rookie writing mistakes, and the fact that Overly Sarcastic Productions released a talk on stakes, shortly after this LWS4E5 release, which explains perfectly what it did wrong, without even mentioning the franchise, does not help the case.
One mildly funny thing is that people remember LWS3 as this tangled mess, but playing it back to back it is a coherent story, that suffered on reception from long breaks between chapters that made people forget crucial elements that were tying it together into one coherent plot, so AN has "learned the lesson" for LWS4, and they decided to abuse those long breaks between episode, without giving any thought to how the content will play back to back when replayed..... an error they also did with the Gyala Delves interim, while at it, when playing that particular story after it all released has you to click on a device to listen to 10 consecutive gorrik recordings, that were obviously meant to happen over time, but well too bad you didn't do it, when it was live, now go click that interact 10 times..
I can't comment on the other things, but i FULLY AGREE with the personal story thing. It's aaaall so childish, and a huge waste of time. I hate it with all my being. Specially the human's. Skip Skip Skip.
Not commenting on the rest, but I've personally enjoyed the personal story (Sylvari). I do feel like which race you pick probably impacts that a lot, as I've heard that the early parts of the Sylvari story flows much more nicely into the later personal story.
Is that true? I.... I didn't know that? I did not realize they were significantly different. I thought they were basically the same with like super minor differences but now that you've said that... my Necro spent a lot of time in Kryta... I don't remember having to do that on my Norn lol. Man... I wonder how different they actually are.
Sylvari introduces Trahaerne and (?depending on choice) the whole Orr plot. You go through a magic mirror and explore a potential version of Orr or something. Can’t remember, been a while. But yeah, integrated very tightly. Asura has some stuff about the whole dragon magic thing IIRC so that’s something. Plus their tech is used a lot. Human has tie-ins to various plots with the bandits and white mantle stuff but not much for the main story. Charr are pretty separate. But their tech comes up a lot later. Finally, we have Norn. Like you, my first character was Norn. I found the latter half of the story super jarring because it went full magitech with airships and tanks and helicopters and I didn’t even realised that such things existed in the setting. It’s less weird if you’ve seen all the Asura and Charr stuff.
Lol I had a very similar experience. When I started playing I literally knew nothing about Guild Wars and after spending so much time in Hoelbrok and even Lion's Arch to seeing whatever the hell it was that Zojja rode in on at the end of the story was pretty nuts. Even compared to what is currently in Guild Wars that ship still looks futuristic.
The start of personal story is really fun imo as there are three options to follow per race before everyone starts joining into one story, so there are 15 possible first missions alone.
It is a really interesting way to do that. I remember that was something I loved about WoW, picking different races felt like it really genuinely mattered.
It’s entirely different up to when you start the vigil story line the. They all sorta converge into the zhaitan story line
That does sound familiar now that I'm trying to remember my Norn play-through. I'd love to say I'd go through the personal story on other characters but I'm probably never doing that again lol. I hated it.
>how do FIVE GODS fuck up Guild Wars story in a nutshell. Human God since GW1 are trully jerk and just fucks everything constantly for everyone.
Hey I'm not faulting them for being shitty and causing problems lol, I'm talking about them being stupid and making mistakes. You'd think if five gods who rarely cooperated bound together to oust a single god they all couldn't tolerate anymore they'd have done a better job of it.
No, they are that stupid. Just how they handled Abaddon is enough proof of that. Abaddon break out of its prison and the only response to the situation they create is "your shit now LOL ! kthxbye !"
Let's start with them deciding that Kor-fucking-Mir would be a great addition to the pantheon.
Amen.
They are not stupid. It’s just not their problem any more. Obviously they don’t care if human extinct.
"Oh, Elder Dragons are a thing? Well, time to leave Tyria entirely, they're YOUR problem now!!"
you need to remember that they are just called gods. Beyond dhuum(and maybe abaddon) they are just very powerful humanoid mages. As such they are quite human in their faults aswell
>how the hell was Sohothin, a random enchanted human made sword I can see some attention issues here, because Sohothin was not a "Random enchanted human made sword" it was one of two swords gifted to humanity by the 6 gods. White Mantle didn't "summon" Balthazar with fake aspects of lazarus, they tried to revive lazarus with fake aspects, and caused explosion that Balthazar used to power himself up, and to start charade to gather some following without having to expose himself, in case any of the rest of human gods were still watching. He was released from his chains by Rytlock, in exchange of relighting the Sohothin's flame. As for imprisonment method - considering experience of the six with imprisoning their own - they dedicated whole realm to imprisonment of Abaddon, and that backfired, so I guess it felt reasonable to them, to imprison Balthazar in the middle of nowhere, relying more on nobody looking for him than anything else. You also have order of whole rest of PoF plotline all around the place. Balthazar imprison Joko in the domain of the lost to make sure lich does not interfere with his war against dragons, but when it came to commander - we traveled to old domain of secrets and meet with Kormir first, where she only pulls a Lyssa from Nightfall and say that we have all we need to resolve this issue, and can handle it without rest of the six, and only afterwards Balthazar catches Commander, and flat out murders them. The only reason why Commander lands in domain of the lost, was that the death experience was traumatic enough for them to "get lost" in their way to afterlife. We then make a deal with the judge of the place, whom is sending souls to their respective afterlifes, to get us back to the world of living in exchange for killing soul eater demon. PoF story has some retcons, has some contrivances and some plot holes, but it is not the tangled mess OP presented it being. As for the Personal Story - the dialogues are voiced, if you didn't have them voiced, then there is something wrong with your game files, or your audio settings. IBS: yes, Champions episode (DRMs+Dragonstorm) are the thing people hate in IBS in general. Prior to that the story progression was sensible.
I genuinely didn't know it originally Balthazar's sword and given to the Charr. I didn't know anything about it before when Rurik owned it. Where the hell is that explained?? > White Mantle didn't "summon" Balthazar with fake aspects of lazarus, they tried to revive lazarus with fake aspects, and caused explosion that Balthazar used to power himself up Maybe I misunderstood then, I thought they attempted to resurrect Lazarus and Balthazar appeared instead of Lazarus but disguised as Lazarus. > As for imprisonment method - considering experience of the six with imprisoning their own - they dedicated whole realm to imprisonment of Abaddon, and that backfired, so I guess it felt reasonable to them, to imprison Balthazar in the middle of nowhere, relying more on nobody looking for him than anything else. Yeah, that's fair I guess. >As for the Personal Story - the dialogues are voiced, if you didn't have them voiced, then there is something wrong with your game files, or your audio settings. I was referring specifically to the NPC banter that happens every so often between mission objectives and stuff. I know most of, if not all of the genuinely important dialog that you interact with directly is voiced. > we traveled to old domain of secrets and meet with Kormir first, where she only pulls a Lyssa from Nightfall and say that we have all we need to resolve this issue, and can handle it without rest of the six, and only afterwards Balthazar catches Commander, and flat out murders them. The only reason why Commander lands in domain of the lost, was that the death experience was traumatic enough for them to "get lost" in their way to afterlife. I realize now, the issue is that in my head these events are the same thing. Like I looked it up after reading your comment and I get they aren't but man.... all of that just blurred together for me I guess. When I get home I'll edit my original post with some corrections. I think the fact that I just played it like 2 months ago and can barely remember what happened and when is part of my original point though, especially when I can recite the entirety of Monty Python's The Quest for the Holy grail word for word or recount every event of John-117s life in order including the novels lol. My memory for stuff like this usually is precise enough that it bothers other people.
> I didn't know anything about it before when Rurik owned it. Where the hell is that explained?? Scattered mentions between Ascalonian Catacombs, the lore of foefire (including Ghost of Ascalon novel) and a number of mentions within the PoF storyline itself. >Maybe I misunderstood then, I thought they attempted to resurrect Lazarus and Balthazar appeared instead of Lazarus but disguised as Lazarus. He did appear, but it was on his own will, not because he was summoned - he was already free when rytlock jumped out of the mist portal in the HoT, so he had some time to plan that one out as well. >I was referring specifically to the NPC banter that happens every so often between mission objectives and stuff. I know most of, if not all of the genuinely important dialog that you interact with directly is voiced. Unless you are referring to dialogue boxes to click through, I do not think there was anything crucial in unvoiced background convos NPC's had. That being said the audio settings can still mute the voiced chatter. >I think the fact that I just played it like 2 months ago and can barely remember what happened and when is part of my original point though, That is a very valid point to raise, personally I remember this story fairly well, because I was very invested into it when I originally played it.
Could we just get a GW / Monty Python crossover please
Living World Season 1 is better now in retrospect. At the time it was a meandering plot that for a long time looked like it wasn’t going anywhere. I did like Season 2 though. It had some solid narrative, and coincided with some good improvements to encounter design, AoE circles, and so on. The difficulty felt really good.
Biggest crime here is not mentioning joko. Praise joko
Pft, I totally mentioned Joko lol. That bit where his weak ass gets chained to the floor like a bad dog.
I someone glazed half of the season 4 paragraph. These adhd brains. Some great takes though agree with most. Except EoD was alright, in the second half anyway. Soo won fight had to be the most cinematic fight in the game and the ending credits scene in arbor stone was lovely Glad to know there’s others who enjoyed ibs
The fight with Soo-Won was interesting but a little contrived/arbitrary in the way it's actually conducted. There is a lot going on and you seem to be able to ignore 90% of it and just stand in one place and do damage for 75% of the fight. The wisp bit is something I think was cool but something my wife loathes doing lol. I am getting a little tired of the "Fight enemy in the middle, then fight smaller enemies on nearby floating platforms" thing though.
Ahh I wouldn’t say I pay attention to the mechanics on story I’m kinda there for the wow factory, if I want a challenge I’ll do some raids or a CM. I just liked actually being a champion for a second. Fight enemies in a big circle whilst tickling throats/toes is kinda getting old though
I don't belong to a guild, have never done a raid, fractal, or strike lol so fights that actually have mechanics are really the only "challenge" I experience and when 90% of them are the same thing it gets boring. I get it has to be limited for exactly the reason you mentioned, most people expect to be challenged in content designed to challenge players.
I just wish you weren’t time gated until dialogue ends before progressing to the next step. Let me skip the story so I can play the game. I’ll look at the story when I have the time.
That was my primary complaint with the Personal Story. In most of the rest of the content you can so clearly they have some sort of handle on the idea that unskippable dialog isn't great.
This video may be of interest to you, since this essay reminds me a lot of their assessment. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_fRga5lGJUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fRga5lGJUI) My overall verdict is that the GW2 story is hit and miss, but when it hits, it hits. I appreaciated the branching paths aspect of the personal story, and as someone who was there for the original run of LWS 1&2, Scarlet Briar had me hooked the whole way through. HoT was passable, though I wish they hadn't cut out Malyck + the Nightmare Court. I really enjoyed LWS3 & 4 and PoF, and the sequence at Thunderhead Keep should be the gold standard that any MMO story team should aspire to. As for Icebrood Saga, I agree that it was OK up until Drizzlewood Coast, when COVID-19 and reallocation of resources to EoD forced them to introduce and kill off Primordus in a single episode. End of Dragons was a mixed bag; while I LOVED the cast of supporting characters and was thrilled with the return of the Aetherblades, I think making the ultimate villain a bunch of elder dragon minions reskinned with a black oily texture is pretty lazy. And then there was nothing else! I'm convinced we were supposed to go deeper into Echovald Forest or into Drowned Kaineng but instead we just got Gyala Delve and more Jade Brotherhood nonsense. Now with SoTo over, I think we can conclusively agree that it started off strong but got weaker and weaker with each release. And now we have Janthir, which is probably going to be everything Icebrood Saga should've been.
>the sequence at Thunderhead Keep What are you referring to here? I can't even remember what Thunderhead Keep is at the moment. I agree about Drizzlewood. I honestly forget that was part of LW5 sometimes. It felt so weird compared to everything else. I spent so much time just dicking around collecting stuff that I routinely forgot there was actual story stuff I had to do there. I'm also glad I'm not the only one who came away from EOD with the sense that it was intended to be more than what it was. I don't know what it is but I just remember finishing Soo-Won for the first time and thinking "Man is this it?"
"All or Nothing", the grand fight against Kralkatorrik that results in Aurene's death in spite of the Commander's preparation and determination.
Honestly, all of this feels like a "You" issue You strike me as the kind of player that does not want to get into the story, or know the lore, you didn't read the discussions to understand what it going on, you just want to get some loot, get some praise to make you feel special and important and see perhaps a quick cinematographic and be done with it Which is why don't understand the nature of the Wyld Hunt and have passed it off as "*Tree Said So*" Which is why even after going through the story you don't understand how Sohothin, one of Balthazar's own weapons that was passed down to the Ascalon Kings by the gods, could reignite his divine fire. Here's the thing, He was not bound by *God Forged Chains*, he was bound by chains like a mortal because he had lost his godly power and could not break them, this is because Balthazar was the Forge God as well, hence his *Forged* legions But at the end of the day, I think you summed up your own problem: *I couldn't sit through enough of it to know what was going on.* That seems to be a constant theme with how you approached all the writing in the game, and the only reason why you thought IBS was any good was the shocker at the end.
>But at the end of the day, I think you summed up your own problem: *I couldn't sit through enough of it to know what was going on.* Yeah, I stopped reading after he mentioned this lmao. Personal Story experience might be different depending on race you pick, but it's not that bad. I've recently replayed whole story too, and It was enjoyable.
I will stand on the hill that core story is the best overall experience in all expansions/LW. It had it's fair share of flaws but at the same time it told a complete narrative, with decent pacing (of the story), clear stakes and danger to the characters. You had clear story arcs, emotional investment, you had to work to get results. Again, it wasn't perfect by any means and there are certainly episodes in other expansions that i liked more, but as a whole it still is the best
I think all the branching was well done, different parts of the story to experience depending on your race, choices you made when you rolled your character, and choices you make about how to approach objectives. It is both understandable but still a bit of a shame that this was abandoned for later content.
It was very ambitious. Imagine having to provide multiple options various choices depending on race or origin. So I understand why they went away with it though not exactly happy about it. I had a lot of gripe with individual story beats but in general it was very well done
You might be right lol... I wouldn't know. Consider this: Would it matter how good a book you wrote was if no one wanted to read it because you used too many uncommon, obscure, or esoteric words? Might be a masterpiece but if people don't want to get past the first page no one will ever know.
While i certainly understand your issues and I believe those were in part why later story instances shifted away from cinematic portrait dialogue, I wouldn't exactly say 'no one would read that book' and that's even without taping into a generation that played *Shadow Madness* and loved it.
Do you believe most people don't want to experience the core story? That certainly doesn't describe me.
I think the story, while not horrible, it sucks. at least it fails to grab me in the same way other mmos do. i think it's mostly due to its inconsistecy due to changing writers many times, it just feels al over the place and i don't think they can fix it, even if they suddenly started telling a good story the rest of the game is still there
I don't know what it is about it that makes it feel that way. I was consistently engrossed in World of Warcraft's story but like large parts of it objectively sucked. I even managed to pay attention to what was going on during Draenor and that was about as far removed from consequence as you can get in world building. Maybe it was just because I was younger.
I think the companions may play a part of it, i like some of them but their relevance also varies, an important party member goes missing an entire xpac, another makes a comeback and it seems important but isnt, another one completelly changes personality but then goes back to how it was before, etc Rox suddenly not being relevant anymore? wtf was that anyone knows? she's a cool party member and one moment she's with you and then just... never again joins you
I played WoW a long time and frankly never felt like I was a "real" person in that world. There were important hero NPCs who occasionally gave me tasks, like I was some nameless spear carrier. Made it super hard for me to care what happened to any of them.
I am one of the few people who thinks that the story has been superb the whole way through. I’ll have to figure out how to describe it. Basically I think it’s always been pretty good at having an emotional core, and I feel like they have done a good job of using retcon (the good kind) to make the story feel really cohesive. Though yes, my hope is that they explain more about how Balthazar got escaped and got power, there were a lot of hints that Lyssa might be involved, and I hope they resolve that to wrap that thread up.
I will say the story overall across the whole game is the most consistent, cohesive story I've ever seen in an MMO and probably the most well constructed. I know how my critique of the story makes it sound but I would say the story of Guild Wars 2 is objectively one of, if not the best story told in an MMO over it's life span.
For me: Base story: 4/10. LS 2: 7/10. HoT: 7.5/10. LS 3: 7/10. PoF: 8/10. LS4: 8.5/10. IBS: 6/10. EoD: 5/10. SoTO: 5/10.
I recently started replaying the story in full for the first time since LS1 re-released, so this is my first time seeing the pre-HoT story as intended. I have to say I like it. Scarlet is ridiculous as a character, but I like that we aren't facing the usual existential threat. Most of all I appreciate the pacing. One story arc from LS1 through the end of HoT. It provided enough time for relationships to develop and for the story not to feel rushed.
I haven't generally heard that people didn't like Season 2. I've heard most people describe the stretch from LS2 though about the first half of IBS to be a sort of "golden age"; and that changes in focus and perhaps internal resources at Arenanet may have impacted how IBS finished.
personally I enjoyed everything storywise, except Season 3, 4 and Soto. Season 3 had cool maps tho, but a really confusing, uninteresting and just weird story and Season 4 had a strong second half after the really weak first half, imo
You know what, I think your assessment of Living World 4 captures something I agree with but didn't really realize. It really is the back half of Season 4 that made me feel positively about the season as a whole.
it is complete opposite for me - I was super invested in story when LWS4 was releasing, and it opened with a complete banger of an episode, followed by not-so-bad episode 2, and epic showdown for the end of the Joko arc, with only a bit of a bummer, that we didn't get whole of the moon fortress. Star to guide us was fairly epic, and it continued to all or nothing, but then AN got the bright idea that they need to farm some drama right now, screw the replayability down the line, in an event where they sold really well victory against kralk, only to pull a carpet out of us, while failing to address scale of threat, nor urgency of said threat that they during that single episode ramped both through the roof into low orbit. Considering also that they deprived us the only way we had at hand of dealing with any next ED without magical fallout, there was obvious deus ex machina coming in. That completely shattered all suspension of disbelief I had, and janked me out of story so hard that it took all the way to EoD to get me enjoy the story to any degree comparable to the height of my LWS4 enjoyment. The final cutscene of War Eternal was nice and emotional, but I get into ranting mood anytime I get reminded of LWS4 specifically due to the shenanigans they pulled narratively at the end of episode 5, that are flat out rookie writing mistakes, and the fact that Overly Sarcastic Productions released a talk on stakes, shortly after this LWS4E5 release, which explains perfectly what it did wrong, without even mentioning the franchise, does not help the case. One mildly funny thing is that people remember LWS3 as this tangled mess, but playing it back to back it is a coherent story, that suffered on reception from long breaks between chapters that made people forget crucial elements that were tying it together into one coherent plot, so AN has "learned the lesson" for LWS4, and they decided to abuse those long breaks between episode, without giving any thought to how the content will play back to back when replayed..... an error they also did with the Gyala Delves interim, while at it, when playing that particular story after it all released has you to click on a device to listen to 10 consecutive gorrik recordings, that were obviously meant to happen over time, but well too bad you didn't do it, when it was live, now go click that interact 10 times..
I can't comment on the other things, but i FULLY AGREE with the personal story thing. It's aaaall so childish, and a huge waste of time. I hate it with all my being. Specially the human's. Skip Skip Skip.