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Remaster of Personal Story with Icebrood Team


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Ya, I think this would be absolutely great.

I don't really post here often at all but I've been playing for around 4 years with the boyfriend & co. I really love the game now after a kinda slow start, and I owe this to his patience and his sister's patience with my loud, entertaining protests at every little oddity... many of which I find endearing at this point.

One subject however is still a running joke between us all - and that is the play through of the personal story: I don't want to dice my words or waste time so I'll say "it has not aged well". Compare it to the excellent words I hear about the Icebrood Saga - for the first time I'm really excited to play story driven content in this game. Also, there are serious technical issues in some of the instances... I've managed to kick myself behind map assets twice now, once by just swimming through a wall in Abaddon's temple, and this is terrifying to me so I mention it specifically.

For perspective: I myself am not a good judge of these things. I'm pretty impatient first of all, and I tend to be highly critical of timings, cut scenes, general flow and awkwardness that might otherwise be overlooked. My boyfriend is eons ahead in patience and sees the flowers really, but he is not a fan of the PS instances at all, and especially of Trahearn - despite his fine voice acting. In fact, my boyfriend detests Trahearn and I have all the jokes about it. My boyfriend's sister is a published novelist (steam punk, mystery & magic) and uses terms like "Head Cannon" that I have trouble contemplating. She remains silent on the subject, but occasionally emits groans when I whine about them joining me in my attempts re: the personal story.

I'm trying at the moment to play through everything start to finish because it soothes my neurotic ENFP mind and I keep thinking that a new player just introduced to the game might get a certain impression about the current content when struggling through this ancient content ...and so here I'm pitching a hugely expensive remaster :D Also, I understand the content is the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of good people, and I know that spirit continues at Anet, and that's why I'm even talking about this. I think it would be a great thing to see this stuff reworked to again become a prominent component of the game as it is today.

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Would it be great to have it reworked to current production values? Yes (imo). The core was prob the best story they told, it just lacked polish in terms of dialogue and most of all instances.

Will it happen? Not a chance ever in a million years. The core story is massive and to rework it would take at least as long as an expansion if not longer given the horrible spaghetti code it is built upon. Given we wont be seeing a rework of LS1, which has virtually story and has been said to take to long to remake into a suitable, playable format (I exclude those "visions" versions since they lack context), I think it is safe to rule out any chance of a PS rework.

It would be nice though. Apart from cleaning up the awkward cutscenes, dialogues etc, they could ramp up the difficulty better, have named Dragon Lieutenants in Orr and through the campaign not quite so easy to defeat and make the Zhaitan finale somewhat better. As long as they didn't change the essence of it - the campaign has a soft spot for a lot of players - then it would be OK.

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@"Randulf.7614" said:Would it be great to have it reworked to current production values? Yes (imo). The core was prob the best story they told, it just lacked polish in terms of dialogue and most of all instances.

Will it happen? Not a chance ever in a million years. The core story is massive and to rework it would take at least as long as an expansion if not longer given the horrible spaghetti code it is built upon. Given we wont be seeing a rework of LS1, which has virtually story and has been said to take to long to remake into a suitable, playable format (I exclude those "visions" versions since they lack context), I think it is safe to rule out any chance of a PS rework.

It would be nice though. Apart from cleaning up the awkward cutscenes, dialogues etc, they could ramp up the difficulty better, have named Dragon Lieutenants in Orr and through the campaign not quite so easy to defeat and make the Zhaitan finale somewhat better. As long as they didn't change the essence of it - the campaign has a soft spot for a lot of players - then it would be OK.They can add a story step after Zhaitan falls, which involves fighting it on the ground, and adding a strike mission ala visions of the past.All that could be made as part of the current Living world story, some mist shenanigans going on with Jormag and what not, and we get to replay some epic old battles, Zhaitan, Mordremoth, Balthazar , Kralkatoric, all could be strikes. Arenanet should really start thinking about using resource reuse of already complete code to help them push out content easier and even polishing old content as part of the new content.

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I think It'd be a good idea to update the personal story in some places and core maps a little.I doubt they ever would rework the personal story but If anything I'd hope they revamp the finale with Zhaitan to be a bit more engaging.For the Maps I think all they need is some asset upgrades, better terrain textures and better lighting. There's plenty of assets in the newer maps they could replace out the old ones for, for instance Boja Marches assets would look great in the snowy areas. They could also get rid of some of the random invisible walls you hit into when using skyscale and girffon.

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@Vancho.8750 said:...even polishing old content as part of the new content.

I think it would be such a cool thing. Twice I've tried to commit to running through the whole timeline and I always fail to make it because I'm flaky. This time around I'm going to do it since I've discovered my perfect class (mesmer).. plus the game is so gorgeous and fun that any kind of polish like you're talking about would be met with wide eyes and excitement, from myself for sure.

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a remaster would be cool and essentially be a new lowlvl content even for veterans - a thing many people asked for. however, that is a double-edged sword for a publisher because replacing old stuff that somebody might like more than the replacement creates unnecessary anger.

@Randulf.7614 said:make the Zhaitan finale somewhat better.

i have been on that side for a long time but after LS3, PoF and LS4 where basically everybody else apart from the commander and aurene is rendered completely useless in hindsight i like that zhaitan is made that way: it's not a single dude who kills a dragon but the combined power of scientists, engineers, pilots and soldiers that brings him down. in hindsight zhaitan was actually the hardest dragon to kill because he was the only one that needed more than 2 people.

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@WorldofBay.8160 said:a remaster would be cool and essentially be a new lowlvl content even for veterans - a thing many people asked for. however, that is a double-edged sword for a publisher because replacing old stuff that somebody might like more than the replacement creates unnecessary anger.

@"Randulf.7614" said:make the Zhaitan finale somewhat better.

i have been on that side for a long time but after LS3, PoF and LS4 where basically everybody else apart from the commander and aurene is rendered completely useless in hindsight i like that zhaitan is made that way: it's not a single dude who kills a dragon but the combined power of scientists, engineers, pilots and soldiers that brings him down. in hindsight zhaitan was actually the
hardest
dragon to kill because he was the only one that needed more than 2 people.

Oh I agree with that, I'd just like some improved mechanics so it feels more like a fight. Make it so you actually have to protect the cannon from waves of adds for example. Make the last bit a little less, "press fire over and over to win"

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@WorldofBay.8160 said:it's not a single dude who kills a dragon but the combined power of scientists, engineers, pilots and soldiers that brings him down.

That is a really perfect aspect of the story, I totally agree. And about replacing, I don't think anything should be replaced; I'm imagining all the scenes that could be dramatically remastered, like the battle at Ft. Trinity, the battle at Claw Island... those are the two I've gotten through on this latest attempt and they are pretty cool despite the minor flaws, and impressive in their own right

Edit: typos

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I respect that remastering content is as much or sometimes more work than making new content. I have replayed the personal story many times on different race/prof combos and it does stand the test of time better than some MMO beginner areas and stories. .

An idea I have had would be to have each expansion include new starter areas and personal stories that are tied directly to the expansion and provide an alternate personal story. This would give the devs a clean slate to build on, highlight the theme of the expac and give new and returning players new immersive content from level 1.

Can you imagine creating a new character in EoD that is specifically Canthan in flavor and tells the story of how you came to the area?

No this doesn’t remaster old content but it does provide an updated experience in new content. Something we typically get with GW2 already.

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@"Mungo Zen.9364" said:An idea I have had would be to have each expansion include new starter areas and personal stories that are tied directly to the expansion and provide an alternate personal story. ...Can you imagine creating a new character in EoD that is specifically Canthan in flavor and tells the story of how you came to the area?

I would be into something like that. How would you tie the existing "Commander" storyline into it though? If a bunch of time and resource were invested into creating a new personal story for EoD you would also have to create a new race to go with it, and that would then have to tie into the original personal story at some point - and there you would definitely need to remaster it to prevent a jarring change of style (and asset quality) from the new content to the original.

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@Mungo Zen.9364 said:I respect that remastering content is as much or sometimes more work than making new content. I have replayed the personal story many times on different race/prof combos and it does stand the test of time better than some MMO beginner areas and stories. .

An idea I have had would be to have each expansion include new starter areas and personal stories that are tied directly to the expansion and provide an alternate personal story. This would give the devs a clean slate to build on, highlight the theme of the expac and give new and returning players new immersive content from level 1.

Can you imagine creating a new character in EoD that is specifically Canthan in flavor and tells the story of how you came to the area?

No this doesn’t remaster old content but it does provide an updated experience in new content. Something we typically get with GW2 already.

That's exactly what they did with GW1, and it worked fantastically to a point however, I can imagine some big problems with that in GW2 as it's a heck of a lot bigger and the story far more reliant on linear progression throughout it.

Chiefly, the story directly relates to central Tyrian characters, and these distant lands in the xpacs have typically been cut off for some time before the story takes us there. If the new xpac starters were to take place in chronological order (say 10 years after the fact if you start as Canthan), then there wold be some explaining to do about what happened to Zhaitan/etc - They could play that off as something 'someone else' did, I suppose, but IMO it would detract from hero's journey our characters are on, and the building of their legend. Also, and undoubtedly, entire threads would cease to make sense.

One could do what they did in GW1 and have our characters join the fight halfway through events. Start in xpac, take a ship to the mainland at the point where our characters join an order perhaps, but that's still a hard-sell given how linear the story currently is.

If it was done as though this new starter wasn't our Commander, then it would be more of a spin-off story than an expansion, and playing earlier content would be taking on the role of another character than playing as this new starter. There would also be the question then of who/where is the Commander while this new character takes on the new story/ does the Commander even exist to them?Not sure how favourably that complication would go down.

There's also the trouble of size. Whether the new starters have a complete 1-80 story plus zones in the xpac, or simply upto level 20/30/etc before joining the mainland content or not. It would be a heck of a lot more content required. Practically an entire new game. In GW1 the max level was 20, so, less required.

It's just my opinion. I loved how it worked in GW1, but that story felt a lot easier to drop in and out of and each xpac was essentially a self-contained story rather than something which ran on.

VERY interested if they could somehow make it work though.

Also, as the main topic of the thread, thumbs up for anything about revamping earlier content.

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@"Vavume.8065" said:The 60-80 rewards from personal story need a buff, I have around 20 characters at story step 60, no point going further, the rewards are terrible and it is extremely long, if they added black lion keys at 70 and 80 and I would finish the story.

If they added a Legendary of my choice or a bag of 3k gold at the end, I'd gladly redo the story on all characters, but rewards aren't the point as the game gets more rewarding after reaching Lvl80 and when doing endgame content which is different from story content. What OP wants/imagines is a rework in terms of quality. The story told is good but it lacks the advanced techniques ANet has nowadays to tell that story. Compare the side-by-side dialogues from the core game to the cinematics of PoF or the later seasons of the living world as an example. Where the first is non-immersive and sometimes outright ridiculous, as the game jumps from "wooo...scary action beat" to "two characters in profile having a relaxed chat say things like "WATCH OUT!!!"; the second really keeps things going and has a nice flow to it most of the times.

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I've heard they don't fix notorious Personal Story bugs because the thing is hanging on by a thread, and any changes will drop it into an abyss of broken.That, mixed with the fact they're obviously not a very big team, means there's absolutely no way it'll happen.

Which is a shame, because the 1-80 Personal Story is hot garbage. So much pointless waiting, awful dialogue, anime voice acting, and disjointed, meaningless events.

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@lokh.2695 said:What OP wants/imagines is a rework in terms of quality.

@LSD.4673 said:...because the 1-80 Personal Story is hot garbage. So much pointless waiting, awful dialogue, anime voice acting, and disjointed, meaningless events.

Ya, yup. Although it's not hot garbage story wise - I mean the interesting story is the reason I even said anything at-all (monocle emoji). A lot of it is pretty neat, sans some minor vignettes and one or another character that will go un-referenced... Ok then, I think this has been parsed and gamed to my satisfaction and for that I'm thankful :3

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Overall I enjoyed the personal story when I played through the whole thing 6 months ago for the first time.

I really wish it was easier to complete the dungeon story missions to make a slightly better connection with Destiny's Edge at the right times during the personal story. Maybe increase rewards (there is other Dungeon threads discussing it) to draw veteran players to play dungeons, including story modes (without skipping).

The last battle needs to be a bit less anti-climatic. Destiny's Edge characters should be more "proactive" and actually be fighting with the player character on the airship instead of basically just chilling in the cockpit. Like wtf? Is this the legendary Desitiny's Edge? A little airline cruise vacation are we having or something? Also an upgraded Zhaitan fight would be most welcome.

@Vancho.8750 said:They can add a story step after Zhaitan falls, which involves fighting it on the ground...

I really like this idea. The build up is a pretty long instance, so actually it would be nice to have an added story step, so as not to be part of the same play-in-one-go instance. Actually I would love for them to end it like it is now, and everyone is like, yay! We did it! But then noooo....surprise! Zhaitan fells the airship and the commander needs to make one last push to defeat Zhaitan on the ground with Destiny's edge and the Pact. Then make that last story step a strike mission. Actually I'd kinda like all story-mode elder dragon fights to eventually be made into strike missions.

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@Tuco.2419 said:Nah, leave old content alone. For nostalgia sake if nothing else.

I just came back to GW2 after 8 years away and it was nice that almost all the things I remembered were mostly like they were.

That's a good point now that I think of it. I remember being really frustrated trying to find the original Star Wars I remember watching as a tiny child. By the time I started looking literally all I could find anywhere was the grossly corrupted version of the latter day person-whom-I-shall-not-name.

Would you say though that polish would be worth it? There's a lot of un-polish going on with what they miraculously pulled together way back then.

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@"Antigravity.4083" said:Ya, I think this would be absolutely great.

I don't really post here often at all but I've been playing for around 4 years with the boyfriend & co. I really love the game now after a kinda slow start, and I owe this to his patience and his sister's patience with my loud, entertaining protests at every little oddity... many of which I find endearing at this point.

One subject however is still a running joke between us all - and that is the play through of the personal story: I don't want to dice my words or waste time so I'll say "it has not aged well". Compare it to the excellent words I hear about the Icebrood Saga - for the first time I'm really excited to play story driven content in this game. Also, there are serious technical issues in some of the instances... I've managed to kick myself behind map assets twice now, once by just swimming through a wall in Abaddon's temple, and this is terrifying to me so I mention it specifically.

For perspective: I myself am not a good judge of these things. I'm pretty impatient first of all, and I tend to be highly critical of timings, cut scenes, general flow and awkwardness that might otherwise be overlooked. My boyfriend is eons ahead in patience and sees the flowers really, but he is not a fan of the PS instances at all, and especially of Trahearn - despite his fine voice acting. In fact, my boyfriend detests Trahearn and I have all the jokes about it. My boyfriend's sister is a published novelist (steam punk, mystery & magic) and uses terms like "Head Cannon" that I have trouble contemplating. She remains silent on the subject, but occasionally emits groans when I whine about them joining me in my attempts re: the personal story.

I'm trying at the moment to play through everything start to finish because it soothes my neurotic ENFP mind and I keep thinking that a new player just introduced to the game might get a certain impression about the current content when struggling through this ancient content ...and so here I'm pitching a hugely expensive remaster :D Also, I understand the content is the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of good people, and I know that spirit continues at Anet, and that's why I'm even talking about this. I think it would be a great thing to see this stuff reworked to again become a prominent component of the game as it is today.

"here I'm pitching a hugely expensive remaster :D Also, I understand the content is the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of good people, and I know that spirit continues at Anet, and that's why I'm even talking about this. I think it would be a great thing to see this stuff reworked to again become a prominent component of the game as it is today."

That's correct. Hugely expensive and time consuming. And so much so, that development in other areas of the game would suffer as a result.

What we need is new content and the devs to fix up stuff that's vital to the game, not pour tons of money and time into something that already works well.

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I have thought about it a lot and thinking about it I came to the conclusion it might be unwise to pay much attention to the original game. I think the original game is great, but it is getting outdated. Instead of making time to remaster it, maybe it is time to redo it. Not as a replacement, but as something besides it. It would obviously be part of an expansion and to select this option for a new character you'd need this expansion (or call it a campaign).I think a new levelling experience in new maps and with a new story would be very much help in refreshing the game as a whole.Another thing is that there is a good niche of players who are uninterested in lvl 80 content, but who are in creating and levelling new alts. Giving them something new would also cather their needs.

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@"Antigravity.4083" said:Remaster of Personal Story with Icebrood TeamYa, I think this would be absolutely great.

Be careful what you wish for ... because Anet.

P.S. I do not believe that there is one "Icebrood Team" and that all episodes of season 5 (including the Prolog episode 0) are made by exactly the same team.

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