Revamping the Personal Story

[zamarren.1472]

Hello! I got on the hype train hard before GW2 was released. WoW had taken the world by storm, and I thought if another MMO came along that was just as popular, or more popular, the whole world would have to take gamers and game devs a little more seriously. Game devs, hypothetically, have to know a lot about risk and reward, motivation and how to teach people new skills. I thought it could have a big impact on education theory and bring about a digital revolution in schools. But GW2 didn't fulfill my ridiculous expectations. They were absolutely too high, but I still feel like the story of GW2, especially at the very beginning of the game, was a major factor in the game's fall. Stick with me on this one.

So much of the promotional material around the game features dragons. The environments and characters are inarguably beautiful, but they're still not dragons. Basically, the game needs more dragons! Particularly at the beginning, when you really need to draw people into the world. Levels 1-10 should be all about the initial events of the Cataclysm, and being there firsthand. Then you get to a point where you're dramatically underpowered and have to retreat to come back later. As a secondary plotline through these early levels, instead of focusing on that NPC guild that I can't remember the name of, and their internal dramas (which really took the urgency out of the whole "DRAGONS!" issue), how about we focus on the conflicts between the races? Working together is a completely new problem, so how about the player is instrumental in bringing them together, at the beginning instead of at the end? Then you have 70 more levels to focus on forming a strategy against all 6 hypothetical dragons, as well as learning all you can about the first one.

I think that would tie nicely into the rest of the story told so far, so the revamp wouldn't have to continue on to the expanded content. Right now, the beginning of the game is lackluster at best, and a chore at worst. Giving it a bit of polish (maybe a lot of polish) would really bring in more new players and infuse some life and budget back into the game. I've been thinking about this since GW2's launch, and this is the first time I've gotten up the guts to post it anywhere. I realize it's a big change, and I'm not holding my breath, but I wanted to get it off my chest.

Thanks for listening!

[The Greyhawk.9107]

Before anything else you need to understand that with how the Personal Story is coded into the game any changes made to the PS will break things, regardless of how big or small. It always does. As such its quite probable that the changes you are asking for would literally be impossible thanks to aforementioned persistent existential horror that is the game's coding. And frankly it is better to keep moving forward with the story instead of making sweeping changes to the starting chapters, I can't say I've heard of instances of that working out for the better.

[zamarren.1472]

This is criticism more from a story writing perspective than a realistic game development perspective. Some players, like myself, really play games for the story more than anything else, and the story in GW2 just feels a little thin at the beginning. And that lays a shadow over the rest of the game's story. So every time I play the game, I think about what might have been. So again, I just wanted to say out loud what has been nibbling at my brain for all these years. It could take those first few levels from merely existing, to being something that really punches you in the gut and gets you interested in what happens next.

I should say that I still love GW2 on a number of other levels. I love my characters and a number of the events that they've gone through. And I also know that revamping the personal story would potentially require remaking the whole base game of GW2. There are a lot of problems with the idea. But ultimately I thought it would be better in the long run to say something. A lot of people have shared their criticisms, but I haven't heard any that talk about the very beginning of the story. But everything that gets changed involves changing the code of the game. It's just the scale of the my idea that makes it a problem.

[anninke.7469]

@"zamarren.1472" said:

...Levels 1-10 should be all about the initial events of the Cataclysm, and being there firsthand. Then you get to a point where you're dramatically underpowered and have to retreat to come back later. As a secondary plotline through these early levels, instead of focusing on that NPC guild that I can't remember the name of, and their internal dramas (which really took the urgency out of the whole "DRAGONS!" issue), how about we focus on the conflicts between the races? Working together is a completely new problem, so how about the player is instrumental in bringing them together, at the beginning instead of at the end? Then you have 70 more levels to focus on forming a strategy against all 6 hypothetical dragons, as well as learning all you can about the first one.

But at the beginning you're not much of a (well known) hero, so being instrumental in bringing the nations together is not really a thing. Why would anyone outside of your own people even listen to you? They're not very willing to do it even after you've slain Zhaitan. And that is the reason you need the DE. They're famous when you're still making your way up. They have connections. They're mostly useless in the actual fighting, but that's another thing.