Kathkere.3068

It's inevitable that I create backgrounds for my characters as I continue playing them. It adds another layer of immersion, figuring out what their personalities are and what motivates them as I explore their fictional worlds. In World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic, this has lead to some lenghty documents detailing various character backgrounds, but I haven't done such a thing for GW2. Partly because of my poor grip of the lore and world building of Tyria, and partly because I haven't played GW2 as much as I've played the other two. That said, I've still developed the characters in my head, and I figure I'll share the background of one of them as I think it's kind of simple and charming! Enter Osuvi! Osuvi is my Asuran ranger. She's a student of biology with zoology as her primary focus. She wrote a doctoral dissertation revolving around the study of the suidae animal branch, which is how she befriended her lovely sidekick on the picture above: the warthog Growbor. She took an interest in boars and pigs early on as she noticed that, contrary to what their appearance might suggest, they possessed a level of intelligence rarely seen among quadrupeds. Growbor became the focus of her research as he proved capable of understanding complex commands and was able to use simple tools to complete various tasks. When she presented her findings she was largely mocked by other Asurans. Some thought her findings ludicrous and biased, and others mocked her simply because she had tamed a wild pig and housed it as a pet. She had had a burning passion for her research and she was proud of what she had discovered, so she was devastated by what she considered an unprofessional examination of her work by her peers. After the academic kerfuffle among her own people she decided to try and share her findings with human scholars instead, but found even less interest among them. It dawned on her that part of the problem was that pigs were viewed as filthy and unclean animals. People already had an established perception of pigs and any claim that countered that perspective was brushed off as something unserious. After three long years of study, Osuvi found herself on the brink of giving up on her research for good. She figured she'd have to find a new subject matter to research if she wanted to be taken seriously. It was with heavy heart that she decided to release Growbor back into the wild... but Growbor was a smart warthog. When she tried to push him away, he'd keep following her. Regardless of what she did, he could tell that Osuvi was upset, even if he didn't understand why. It didn't matter what she tried, he wouldn't leave her side. At the end of the day, she'd fall asleep, snuggled up right next to him. Growbor was a truer friend to her than anyone else had ever been. She found renewed determination for her academical pursuit thanks to the loyalty of Growbor. Eventually she did manage to publish her findings: A Method for Measuring the Intelligence Quotient of Animals: an In-Depth Analysis of the Complex Behaviours of the Suidae Family.

The problem isn't what the NPCs call you, the problem is that you save the world four times at all. You get into some sort of narrative power creep that eventually ceases to be interesting. You've saved the world four times over and you've defeated demigods and then you accidentally stumble off a cliff in Kessex Hills and die. Is that not also a narrative disconnect? Or what if you happened to get shanked by some no-name pirate? Of course, we don't take death into account when thinking about narrative. If we did, would it really be fair to say that you killed Belsebub the Destroyer of Worlds if Belsebub the Destroyer of Worlds killed you fourteen times over before you killed him? I'm rambling, but the point of my ramble is to poke fun at the notion of a linear narrative in an MMORPG space. In the absence of a pre-scripted narrative players starts to make their own narrative*. In my opinion, you shouldn't be so concerned about how NPCs addresses you. How do your fellow players address you? Back in 2007-2008 I played World of Warcraft and on my server there was a horde guild that was notorious for ganking people. They had a website where they posted bounties on alliance players they deemed troublesome, and these alliance players earned some fame on the server just because of that. Those players didn't need an NPC to tell them that they were heroes for they were heroes in the eyes of everyone who had fallen prey to that one ganking guild. Do we really need the narrative threat of an apocalypse in order to keep things interesting? That's just subtext to justify the violence we use to solve the conflict, but you can have subtext that doesn't revolve around the end of the world. Perhaps people ought to see themselves less as the main character and more as "one among many". Sure, you defeated Belsebub the Destroyer of Worlds, but what about the other individuals present, be they players or NPCs. Are they not also worthy of praise? No one mourns the loss of a redshirt, I guess. *Of course, players will probably create their own narrative even when presented with a pre-scripted narrative. The difference is that you have to suspend your disbelief, for the narrative that the game feeds you with is not truly your narrative. Everyone gets the same narrative, and it might not be the narrative that you want. The original story of GW2 is all about good versus evil and it's more or less impossible to be evil. Does that really match the fantasy of the necromancer class?

I've tried this myself! Haven't succeeded (yet) but it makes for a fun challenge. I think that is kind of its own reward, though I guess I wouldn't complain if they were to put an achievement in the game. However, I do think Zaxares brings up a valid point: I personally have few issues with this, but to those that do it could potentially make the achievement an impossibility. (Also, a tip with that lava rock: I typically jump on it and then immediately do a dodge jump. Feels like the safest way to cross!)

Read through the entire thread because I found the OP's fervent defense kind of charming. That said, I'm also in the "locking story behind raids is a bad idea"-camp. However, I'd like to offer a different perspective. "Story" in MMOs is something that has been handled poorly ever since BioWare started touting about their fourth pillar in their MMORPG: Star Wars the Old Republic. While SWTOR largely failed as an MMORPG, it did have an impact on future games within the genre. A personal, single player story became important, even though it violates the key tenets of what an MMORPG is supposed to be. I appreciated the story in Guild Wars 2, but when I look back at my levelling experience in the beginning of 2013, it's not really the story I recall. It's the memories of exploring the world alongside one of my best friends; finding jump puzzles and learing about one another's classes, meeting strange creatures and just... learning the game! That's the personal story an MMO, not the pre-written story that can never truly be yours. Going back to SWTOR; I think they did raiding best when the game launched. You had two raids; one where you went to a prison planet to fight an ancient, dangerous being and another one where you fight against a rogue hutt. Both raids were very much part of the story, but in the grand scheme of things they were rather minor events. The narrative context for the first raid was that the Empire and Republic wanted to secure technology to prevent the other faction from getting it. However, it did not take long for SWTOR to walk into the trap of making raids super-relevant. All of a sudden, the raid content became the content that all other content started to revolve around. There's this misconception that bigger = better, and that couldn't be more false, in my opinion. Modern game writers seem to think that the only way to make a narrative interesting is to include some sort of doomsday plot. Story shouldn't revolve around raiding. Story shouldn't really happen in personal instances separate from the rest of all the players either, in my opinion, but that's not likely to change in this game. No, story should happen in the world and raids ought to complement it. Having cutscenes and dialogues in raids is a sin. It may be interesting the first time around, but raids are designed to be repeatable content. As such, focus should lie on the narrative design of the raid's environment and the bosses within. No dialogue should be necessary, outside of boss barks. The main appeal of killing a raid boss should not be to experience a cutscene or other story beat; no, the main appeal should be to defeat the end boss. I'll end with one last anecdote:I started playing WoW at the start of their first expansion, The Burning Crusade. I was rather late to the raiding scene, but I didn't want to join a guild that was already farming Black Temple and Hyjal Summit (the end raids). I wanted to start from the first raid of the expansion! So I joined an up and coming guild and we progressed together. We did manage to beat Hyjal Summit, but we never defeated Illidan (the last boss of Black Temple). I still remember our very last attempt, the night before Wrath of the Lich King was released. We got close, but we failed. For the moment we felt kinda bad about it, but in hindsight I feel rather proud that we managed to get that far at all. In contrast, I joined the raiding scene late in Mists of Pandaria (4th expansion) as well. I did Siege of Orgrimmar via the Looking for Raid tool and I beat Garrosh and got to see the "epic" cutscene at the end... and I felt nothing. It meant absolutely nothing to me that I managed to beat Garrosh. When I later beat him on a more difficult mode, I didn't really feel anything either. So in that respect, I'm 100% with the OP in the sense that some content ought to remain hard for the sake of being hard. If that's not everyone's biscuit, then that's fine. I've not really been all that into raiding since WoW Cataclysm (2011), truth be told, but I still play MMORPGs.

While I'm also highly skeptical towards the notion of seeing a new race in GW2, I don't think it's impossible. The race would probably have to start at a higher level than the rest, and have a unique story that revolves around the recent story changes rather than the original threat of Zhaitan. I suppose they'd be comparable to Death Knights in World of Warcraft, meaning it would be kind of anachronistic to see them do any post-HoT/PoF content. As for the armor sets, it would depend on how the armors are made. I somehow doubt that Arenanet handcrafts every armor piece for each individual body type, but I could be wrong. If they are, then that presents a huge problem for adding a new race (unless they were to re-use old body types). That said, I'm not all to keen on the addition of a new race myself. I'd prefer to see more customization options to the ones available. Otherwise, I'm not too picky. New elite specs would be fun to see. My number one wish would be for an Inquisitor elite spec for guardians; a rogue/paladin archetype. I'm not sure if it fits in the Guild Wars lore, but one can still wish, eh? Other than that, it'd be nice to explore a new landscape. I don't think they need to add any new methods of traversal, either, but it's a trend so I wouldn't be surprised if they did. That's about it, for me!

I've not had time to read all the posts, but I like this thread! Here are some of my thoughts: I voted for daggers! In Dungeons and Dragons (the father of all fantasy RPGs) there's a class called "Inquisitor" that's basically the combination of a Cleric and a Rogue. d20PFSRD describes it as: Grim and determined, the inquisitor roots out enemies of the faith, using trickery and guile when righteousness and purity is not enough. Although inquisitors are dedicated to a deity, they are above many of the normal rules and conventions of the church. They answer to their deity and their own sense of justice alone, and are willing to take extreme measures to meet their goals.Source: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/inquisitor/ Personally, this is a fantasy that I'm a big fan of. I've played several inquisitors through many different pen and paper campaigns. The niche of the inquisitor would be stealth. Perhaps one of the Virtue abilities could allow the Inquisitor to enter stealth mode? Virtue of Courage, for instance. As of this moment, I don't have many ideas for what abilities they could unlock. I mainly want to mention it, as it is a really cool archetype in fantasy RPGs that is all too rarely seen. I do see two problems with the Inquisitor, though! Firstly, dagger guardian after having gotten dagger warrior? Are they perhaps too similar?Secondly, stealth and heavy armor might be a strange mix. For me, personally, none of these two issues is a deal-breaker, but I can see how it would be for some people. A handheld crossbow would also be an iconic weapon for an Inquisitor :) and it' s a neat idea in general. [Edit 2020-04-24] Having thought some more about this, I think an off-hand pistol would be fitting as well. The idea of the Inquisitor is a Van Helsing type of character, using faith and guile to hunt down the unholy. As for abilities, if there's one thing Guardians lack it's a solid daze ability which is something the pistol could offer; a medium range interrupt! As for the virtues, an idea I've had is that each virtue activates a buff for the guardian that alters the number 1 attack on your weapons which could last for about 6-8 seconds. For instance, with sword it could look something like this:Virtue of Justice buff:Your attack chain sends out projectiles and the third one in the chain causes burn.Virtue of Resolve:A portion of the damage from your attacks restore health. The third attack in the chain causes regeneration for you and your allies.Virtue of Courage:For the duration of the buff, your damage is increased by the amount of damage you take. The third attack in the chain causes protection for you and your allies. It'd be neat if you could combine all three, but if that were to be OP maybe have it so that if you activate one buff, the current one is replaced. This idea is not tied specifically to the Inquisitor idea that I pitched, it's just a neat idea I've had for how the virtues could be different for the next elite specialization.

I usually return to GW2 around the time of the Super Adventure Box. I liked it the first time and I still like it to this day, even though I wish we'd see world 3 and 4 someday. I don't care so much for the rewards as I do about the experience. It's like a gauntlet of colourful and silly jump puzzles. I should hate them, since they break the overall aesthetic of the game, but I don't. I love them! As for the question:Q: What's your favorite level in Super Adventure Box? Is there anything in particular that sets it above the rest it for you?W2Z1 is probably my favourite as it is the most balanced level. The worlds prior are a bit too easy for me and the worlds that come after are a bit too long. My problem with W2Z2 is probably the music. It gets very repetitive, more so than any other level. Q: Last year, Super Adventure Festival was the first festival to introduce a Weekly Vendor. What new items would you like to see on the Weekly Vendor?I've no real opinion, but I'm not sure if I like the concept of a weekly vendor. Won't that just trigger the fear of missing out? Q: What sort of new Super Adventure Festival content would you like to see in the future? It's fine to respond "I want a new World, only spend time on that!" but are there other kinds of gameplay or minigames you'd enjoy in the meantime?I definitely want to see world 3 and 4 above anything else. That said, when it comes to rewards I kind of wish they'd look less Super Adventure Box-y and more GW2-y. Like, you can have a cool sword that starts to glow but instead of having it be retro blocky, have it just be a sword. As much as I love the Super Adventure Box, I don't really like using the skins (even though I've collected many, many of them!) That's it! I was saddened to see that the Box hadn't opened today, but it is good to know it hasn't been shut forever. :smiley: