How would you rate the develops efforts of explaining the world's story/lore ingame?

[Knighthonor.4061]

How would you rate the develops efforts of explaining the world's story/lore ingame? just to be clear, I am talking about the world including zones not currently in the game but have historical lore.For me I have to go to the Wiki a lot of the time to understand the story behind regions I am in.The Living World Story tend to only follow the current story so thats usually not good at giving details and lore about the zones and regions I am playing in.

[hugo.4705]

C, could be better, not that worse.Whereas some main lines are explained, several things are obscure, unfinished:-ls1 for those who haven't experienced it-Malyck-The deep sea dragon (abandonned...)-Polymock Arena-Auris Weirdbringer-The whole past of asura rushed with rata novus-Largos-Tengu-Overseer Kuda and her mother, R3D-RCR......And of course the huge races past heavily forgotten, no mention of it or hints only vague things. It's easy to say that primordius destroyed everything underground but it sounds false. Some cities was surely spared. And even, I can't imagine that anybody sent a distress message and warnings to the other colonies shutting down the gates.

[Luthan.5236]

It's okay. I use the Wiki a lot. (Still playing core game only though.) But I'd need it even more in games like WoW I guess where I'd only skip quest texts to quickly finish doing the boring quests.

Here we have at least story and meta events a bit involved with the lore. Reading the texts of hero challenges and stuff sometimes.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

I would rate it fare. It just needs to be more prominent in displaying information that sticks in the mind of the players. A lot of people forget certain things that happened and usually complain about recently released content not making sense even though it has been built up over time.

[Westenev.5289]

I feel the game is let down by Ls1 - there's too big a gap between personal story and Ls2, especially since many of the key players in Living World were introduced in Ls1. This means a lot of wiki homework for anyone interested in what is going on.

[Ashantara.8731]

This is the US American rating system, right, with "F" being the worst?

I'll definitely go with F then, because a game where you have to read everything up on the Wiki with only small hints here and there placed in the game itself has certainly failed its purpose of teaching the lore to new players and making the game richer by having it planted deeply in its open world content.

[Ultramex.1506]

Sometime i feel threatened (Joko, Balthazaar) other are meh, no impact, no emotion even when its right infront of me( elder dragons)

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Evidently, some players acquire the lore from the game, or the Wiki would have no entries (on lore).

[Westenev.5289]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Evidently, some players acquire the lore from the game, or the Wiki would have no entries (on lore).

Some of that info probably comes from outside info, like Gw1, official books, unavalable legacy content or old dev interviews - none of which you would be able to find in the current game.

[Ashantara.8731]

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:Evidently, some players acquire the lore from the game, or the Wiki would have no entries (on lore).

Only players who have played the lore-rich, exciting stories of GW1 and can make the connection. Or those who have read the books. Both count as "information delivered outside of GW2 itself", no?

[LowestTruth.2635]

I give it a D because of LWS1. It's too prominent of a problem in every sense; the plot and characters fall off a cliff for a new player at LWS2 episode 1.

Also, I have to say:

! Your character telling everyone else it's Mordremoth when you haven't even seen the name in-game is almost as jarring as being best friends with characters you haven't yet met.

Two huge missteps that ensure I can't recommend the game to any of my story/lore fiend friends. It's embarrassing. And I hate that, because I love the game and actually love the lore and the story. I'm tired of having to caveat everything about it, though, so I just don't say anything.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

That's not everything, though.

[Danikat.8537]

I'm no good at reducing complex subjects down to a simple rating, I don't even like rating movies out of 5 or 10. My answer would always start with either 'well it depends on...' or 'it varies'.

In this case it's both. I think there's a lot of variation in how stories are told and how much detail we're given - presumably because it's different writers doing it, but also because some things are meant to be mysterious and not fully understood, or are foreshadowing future events and might only make sense when you look at a whole timeline of events together - which could be, literally, years long. (For example many players picked up on the fact that the Shadow of the Dragon in the sylvari introduction doesn't look or act like a minion of Zhaitan and doesn't seem to be related to the personal story - and for years it was assumed to be a mistake or an oversight or something forgotten, until Season 2 came along and it turned out it was foreshadowing a different dragon and the NPCs who told us about it had deliberately mislead us.) It's possible sometimes some of those threads do get lost or forgotten over time as people change jobs, leave Anet, or simply as priorities change...but we can't know for sure unless they actually tell us whether it's been dropped or they're waiting for the right time to bring it back.

But I also think it depends on how players approach the story and what you consider part of the story vs. extra information. There's a lot of detail which is given by NPCs, or even by interactable objects, outside of cut scenes and story dialogue so if your goal is to finish the story as quickly as possible it's very easy to miss. Especially since it's never as simple as finding the one NPC who will explain everything - they each add bits, and it's going to be in character so it's what they know, from their perspective. Often you need to piece together a few different bits of information to get the whole picture. I'd consider that part of the story still, even though it's optional, that flexibility is one of the things I like about video games as a story telling medium (you can't really do that with movies, or even books) but it does mean there's no guarantee that everyone will find everything, at least not on the first play through.

Then there's some things I don't understand how people kept missing - like when we learned we can't kill the dragons any more. It must have been mentioned during cut scenes and unskippable dialogue in the middle of story instances 4 or 5 times through Season 3, PoF and Season 4 and we had entire Current Events chains about the problems it was causing, and yet right up to the end of Season 4 we had people asking why they've "suddenly" changed that and why it was never explained. I don't know how Anet could have made it clearer without big, 4th wall breaking notifications coming up on screen but apparently it was still confusing.

Overall I think they do a decent job, bearing in mind I'm not expecting everything to be explained fully the moment it's introduced or fully resolved and definitively ended within the same story arc (how disappointing would it be if, for example, the Inquest were never going to come back because we fully defeated them during the asura personal story?) and bearing in mind I like having to go looking for the details and I wouldn't expect to fully understand things without talking to everyone who has something to say and reading anything with text. It's not exactly The Elder Scrolls (where if you really want to know all the detail you'll need to find and read literally dozens of multi-page lore books) but there's enough detail to keep me interested. But like I said it does vary a lot between episodes and storylines and between situations.

I still don't know how to rate it though.

[Tanith.5264]

C. Fair, and I truly wish I could rate it better. But it seems to me that story has long been GW2's weakest point, and one gets the impression that there are too many people trying to take the story in too many directions, and it shows. When the game was about to launch I was in love with the idea of Lovecraftian-level dragons menacing the world, and everyone banding together to fight them. Then, suddenly:

• "Dragons! Let's fight them!"
• "Okay, we beat that one...wait, what's that you say? A mad Sylvari?"
• "She's woken some other dragon we never heard of before now because why? The Sylvari are supposed to be its minions?"
• "We're gonna fight him! Actually, we're just fighting his mind. Sometimes his mouth. No, I don't know where Rytlock is. He's probably fighting his left foot or something..."
• "Yay for us, we beat two dragons! Wait, what's that? Mursaat? Awesome, let's go!"
• "What do you mean, killing the dragons was a bad idea? Don't bother me Taimi, I'm busy fighting this Mursaat...oh, wait, it's...a god...and he's gone off the deep end..."
• "We're going to go save a dragon from this god? With our baby dragon? Seriously?"
• "Well, he didn't seem to like being saved, and neither did the baby. I think we're in trouble."
• "I've been everything since leaving home, including dead, and now Palawa freaking Joko is lecturing me on the finer points of saving the world???"
• "What's that? Thunderhead Keep? Sure, I remember it, site of many a stressful instance."
• CRUNCH!
• "...it still is..."
• "This flying dragon chase with my lich-munching friend Aurene and her granddaddy reminds me of Return of the Jedi. Or driving on 400 during the rush hour. I wonder what's going to happen next..."
• "'Mother'? He's Norman Bates now...?"*

My charr reaper just wants Wintersday to get here now, so he can start drinking heavily.

[Goettel.4389]

Never cared much about the story/lore, doubt I ever will. Game on.

[Fenom.9457]

I took into account loose threads, but in my book they don’t count off much as they can be revisited any time and filled in.

It definitely is a negative mark that season 1 can’t be played, and thousands of achievement points are missing.

But mostly I just left space for “improvement”. What that could be, I don’t know. More development for the villain, perhaps. That scrapped system of lore books? Maybe even entirely new role playing features that allow you to simply immerse yourself in the world better.

[Westenev.5289]

@"LowestTruth.2635" said:I give it a D because of LWS1. It's too prominent of a problem in every sense; the plot and characters fall off a cliff for a new player at LWS2 episode 1.

Also, I have to say:

! Your character telling everyone else it's Mordremoth when you haven't even seen the name in-game is almost as jarring as being best friends with characters you haven't yet met.

Two huge missteps that ensure I can't recommend the game to any of my story/lore fiend friends. It's embarrassing. And I hate that, because I love the game and actually love the lore and the story. I'm tired of having to caveat everything about it, though, so I just don't say anything.

According to the wiki...

During Scarlet's Secret Room, Mordremoth's name is mentioned for the very first time (in in-game lore/storytelling). However, it is implied that the dragon's name as well as the naming of its minions as Mordrem are already well known to both the player and their companions. The issue was recognized and addressed by Narrative Team member Bobby Stein on the official forums.[1] The possibility for a future fix has been vaguely mentioned, though not confirmed.[30]

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mordremothhttps://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Naming-Mordremoth/page/2#post4236417https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scarlet%27s_Secret_Room

So it's not a lorebreak, but it's also not something you'd understand from simply playing the game.

[Gop.8713]

Story isn't really my thing but I think they do fine. The biggest problem is the absence of ls1 and I say that understanding both why it is missing and the existence of the available summary . . .

[WinterSolstice.7829]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:Evidently,

some

players acquire the lore from the game, or the Wiki would have no entries (on lore).

Only players who have played the lore-rich, exciting stories of GW1 and can make the connection. Or those who have read the books. Both count as "information delivered outside of GW2 itself", no?

It's literally in the game. I've been everywhere, interacted with everything, and spoke to every NPC. Just because they don't force more old lore into the storyline itself doesn't mean it doesn't get mentioned anywhere. Priory has a ton of things in there on lore. Then there's achievements even to dive into this or that which also tells you more lore and happenings. HoT Rata Novus has a lot that tries to brush you up on, and in fact to work on Astralaria, I had to go through all the books there and daily quizzes. Different story options will hint at different stuff to take note of. Doing story more than once can show you different ways of experiencing the Pact against Zhaitan even without decision making options. Playing as different character types from race, gender, class, and even crafting professions, effect dialogue and interactivity. If anything we don't get at clear of a picture as playing GW1 ourselves, to newer players many details are skipped out on for the Scarlet War stuff (I am genuinely upset at this), and certain aspects aren't as brushed up on as they could be like Balthazar being the only one going after the Elder Dragons, who the norn's or asura's creators were if charr and humans both had their gods. Some of this I believe still has potential to be touched up on and be brought to light fine without it being too awkward. Otherwise we lack a proper explanation to Skyscale, Warclaw, and a few outfit types that don't get shown on NPCs nor proper time to run down a this and that about it in game vs Devs talking about them in something you won't necessarily have the time/environment/attention span to catch.

There ARE things the books will talk about otherwise hard to find and source, but often it's more detailed of a version of what the game provides currently plus one or two more things. Traditionally, I don't really read lore information much on the story off the wiki as much as a lot of it is very self explained and set out and about and even a few in between added thoughts from along the line as references and jokes like Wikki for example in the Priory's open library.

[Ashantara.8731]

@WinterSolstice.7829 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:Evidently,

some

players acquire the lore from the game, or the Wiki would have no entries (on lore).

Only players who have played the lore-rich, exciting stories of GW1 and can make the connection. Or those who have read the books. Both count as "information delivered outside of GW2 itself", no?

It's literally in the game. [...]

As you explained yourself, it's only bits and pieces, scattered across different contents (PvE, raids, fractals) in a non-chronological, non-cohesive manner. Most of it you run into by chance rather than being directed there. Nothing gets explained as a whole, beginning to end, although everything is in the history books for the citizens of that world, yet not for the players. You have to piece things together yourself, and even then there are huge gaps unless you consult the Wiki.

[WinterSolstice.7829]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@WinterSolstice.7829 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:Evidently,

some

players acquire the lore from the game, or the Wiki would have no entries (on lore).

Only players who have played the lore-rich, exciting stories of GW1 and can make the connection. Or those who have read the books. Both count as "information delivered outside of GW2 itself", no?

It's literally in the game. [...]

As you explained yourself, it's only bits and pieces, scattered across different contents (PvE, raids, fractals) in a non-chronological, non-cohesive manner. Most of it you run into by chance rather than being directed there. Nothing gets explained as a whole, beginning to end, although everything is in the history books for the citizens of that world, yet not for the players. You have to piece things together yourself, and even then there are huge gaps unless you consult the Wiki.

In terms of piecing it together, it's usually by the other pieces in some way or it's a stand alone story of something only half related to something else by proximity! Often times I find then it would be more achievement related to go scavenger hunt it and sometimes they stitch it all together for you in a book that's up to you to keep. Honestly, only the LWS1 stuff drives me nuts because they'll reference it, but we can't properly go back on everything that happened and the people involved. In terms of hunting for it down, there's only selective few maps that actually do any brushing up on it or they're more about their there and now stuff. It's really not that annoyingly setup minus the removed season of work and LWS3 stuff a bit.

[Tukaram.8256]

My only problem is when they don't let you skip some of the long conversations. I am just here to bash monsters... what lore? So, I guess they do ok, when they are not annoying about it.

[Dreamy Lu.3865]

A+ would mean perfect, and for me, it's not. There is a bunch of things that are either left without follow up, or done in such a way that it's very hard to return to them to complete (close to impossible), and I don't like it.Examples:

• The portal rift story: When can we use the device we earned from completing first part?
• The earlier episodes of living stories: There is just the amount of tasks necessary to complete (not like the recent ones where we have a large choice of activities). Problem: How to complete? Some tasks are hard to solo and it's close to impossible to find players to help for this old stuff. To return to those earlier episodes can be quite hard and would need some support, in form of an extension of the tasks for example, to maintain it alive.

Aside of that, I find it very good. Giving the huge content, that's a big work to follow up on all this and I find it pretty well done. :)

[LowestTruth.2635]

@"Westenev.5289" said:

So it's not a lorebreak, but it's also not something you'd understand from simply playing the game.

I'm going to rant just a little, because this is my biggest and only peeve with the game. I like the mechanics, I like the aesthetics, I don't mind the gem store, I don't mind balance changes. Story is it.

When it happened, I was just confused and thinking I missed something. I didn't get annoyed until I googled it and discovered hundreds of posts from people who also were confused and found it jarring. If a story beat is so confusing and jarring that people leave the game to go searching for information then something has been done very wrong. I saw the acknowledgement that it was a mistake.

I would appreciate the acknowledgement from Mr. Stein much more if it hadn't been years since they were aware of the problem and still haven't fixed it. I left the game in 2014 during LWS1 and returned this year. After starting LWS2 I nearly quit again in frustration because narrative continuity is that important to me. I am glad I didn't, but I hear "story story story" from the GW2 team and then no attempt to fix mistakes. Especially when it could be something as simple as one additional line of dialogue referencing the Pact library. No one is perfect the first time in anything and room has to be made to fix things, not simply move on because "old content".

My priorities and theirs are very different. I would never be able to go through the story with the eyes of a newcomer and shrug about it while simultaneously thinking about how to get new players to try the game. From a storytelling perspective, from an emotional investment perspective, from just a having-pride-in-my-work perspective. I genuinely just don't get it. It would be worth both the time and the cost. It would be nothing but positive. Do they just not replay the story? Do they not cringe? There's no one there thinking of the story's integrity and how it mars whatever else they've accomplished? Do they think the majority of people just shrug and move on? It took a long time for me to even like the new characters or LWS2 because of it and I had to watch a freaking 3 hour fan-made movie to get past it.