Ice Brood Saga/living world Spoilers ahead: As someone who main is Charr, and picked Vigil, wut.

[Gorem.8104]

It felt like we were returning to the first story, the personal story, you get to die now you get to die now you get to die now you get to die. Still annoyed that Trahearne goes from saving Orr and cleansing it to saying "what's next" only to be excluded from the final battle which makes no sense unless you've actually been doing the dungeons to him being written off entirely and then killed. Faolain suddenly changes character and causes 2 deaths which was so predictable. 

I genuinely liked LW4, I think its the best story GW2 has even with its one forced death that was predictable and story would be better if it didn't happen. (just so tired of gw2 writers thinking death causes "shock" or has "value" in GW2) Its more just annoyance. More like sighing at how badly written things are, I mean I guess we can't expect a good story in an mmo as its railroaded and you can't make choices after the personal story ended but still, I had hopes after lw4. 

Why do you basically get to witness the death of the rest of the characters you know from the original story? Almorra's death served what purpose? Oh she's achieved her goal, not that we got a good scene with her after that goal and her celebration of killing the thing that wiped her warband or anything. Just, she's dead now, not even a scene with her and Aurene all things considered which honestly could have been cool. Smodor's character was altered so that he could be killed, and for some reason we can't side with him, even as a Charr. (wouldn't it be cool if Charr mains had a different take on IBS? We should have gotten choices considering everything going on). Our Warbandmate here to not really do much but at least they exist. We get to kill our other warbandmates and don't even get anything special for it, just they dead now by our own hands with no words the wiser. Its not shock value its just disappointment. Rytlock dies then essentially everyone we know is gone. Yet they won't kill Braham off cause people actually want him to die. 

Can we not have a single story without someone dying? I mean even we have died now. How long has it been since we had a character written like Tybalt or Vigil's old man Forgal for instance? had a laugh? I know they made us like our mentor just to kill them off, but after that single shock, nothing comes close even after nine years. That one death basically sets you up for GW2's entire writing style. No character has come close to that after all this time, how awesome would it have been to have your chosen Warband member from the start of Charr's Personal story to be that kind of character, to give you tips and laugh with you and joke with you (for Charr mains of course). Coulda done something epic there. Instead we get Dragonstorm and a mute Fire Dragon which has a rushed ending. IBS should have been an expansion, with what it had it could have been huge. I am looking forward to EoD but honestly, I'm just predicting more pointless badly written deaths. 

[Randulf.7614]

Almorra’s death was an important part of Bangar’s character arc. It was neither meaningless or w pointless because it showed how far he was willing to betray his loved ones and his race to reach his means under Jormag’s influence whilst in the end, being betrayed himself.

There’s not always a lot of clever or subtle storytelling going on, but Almorra’s death - once you play visions of the past and see it all in context - was well done, even if a bit jarring when you first find the body.

[Ashantara.8731]

They seem to be saving resources by letting important "little" things happen off-screen, then have an NPC tell us about it or via comm device (which I abhor beyond words).

Unfortunately, a lot of those things would have enriched the story and made it a lot more diverse and exciting, because you can't just hop from one major event to another, leave out the in-betweens, then hope it would make for good story-telling. Good story-telling requires a certain pace and proper bridges between major story steps. Often the little things are the more exciting ones that pull the audience in and keep them invested in the story.

Side note: Faolain was never out-of-character. She was selfish, with a propensity to evil, ever since the day we first met her (via Caithe's memory missions).

 

[Randulf.7614]

Episodic mmo storytelling needs to keep a lot of the little stuff out of the central narrative in order to keep it on track and playable. Ultimately GW2 is an action based story and that needs to be reflected in the instances

As long as those little bits are told in some way - events, open world, collections, npcs, comm chats then it’s fine,  but trying to put deep, rich storytelling through the instances whilst maintaining a high level of gameplay interaction is very hard. GW1 had to do most of it via the world building outside of the instances and kept a very simple, straightforward story in the instances.

Sometimes they go too far with that like HoT though. And things becomes so narrow or so short, that there isn’t time to tell even the central story in depth. Same with IBS after Drizzlewood. That’s where it comes undone. Almorra’s death isn’t one of those because we can play it and we can see how it fits into the wider story. That was quite well done I thought.

[Tazer.2157]

After the release of the  IBS I stopped caring about the story and I suggest you do the same. I honestly feel that the Zhaitan Arc, for all its flaws had the most enjoyable story. Trahearne IMO was one of the best video game characters I have ever come across, a level headed, thoughtful leader who followed up on his wyld hunt.  Apart from him the characters in Destiny's Edge were decent, though I wish we had more interactions with them.  But everything good comes to an end and now we are stuck with a bunch of loud selfish brats (a know it all Asura, a brainless Norn, a MIA charr and two other forgettable characters). These characters do anything they like and sometimes it is difficult to even realize that we are the leader of this group.  Luckily there are plenty of other games that offer a more coherent meaningful story. I suggest Fallout NV, Dragon Age Origins and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. 

[Ashantara.8731]

17 hours ago, Tazer.2157 said:

I suggest Fallout NV, Dragon Age Origins and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. 

Looks like we have the same taste and quality expectations.

I wish they could write stories like that for GW2. I believe a major problem is the dialogue - they try to be "tongue-in-cheek", but end up having everyone sound like dimwits and annoy the hell out of me. And what for? Only so that their game would come across as "different than other MMORPGs" and attract new players (the same with all the immersion-breaking high-tech). The game itself is different enough, you don't need to be "in your face" about it.

But I have stopped comparing with other games a long time ago, because it's frustrating. ArenaNet has shown they can provide decent story-telling with the beginning of Bjora Marches (or back in the days of GW1). The first half of the IBS really got my hopes up high, only to feel let down in the end.

Perhaps we will get better writing for EoD?

[Tazer.2157]

4 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Perhaps we will get better writing for EoD?

I hope this is the case. 

[deatine.2498]

As a blood legion, vigil, charr main, everyone I ever cared about in the context of the world/story is gone. It's kinda funny, actually.

Pretty much our whole warband got killed off twice (beginning of the story, and after Drizzlewood). Our Order mentor is dead obviously. Our Order leader (Almorra) is dead. Our Order's second in command (Laranthir) vanished. Our first Marshall (Trahearne) got killed off. Our legion's imperator (Bangar) and apparently half our legion are traitors.

I felt these characters were relevant to a military oriented character, which new charr players start out as.

Our original sparring partner character lives, but has been irrelevant since lvl 30 or so.
Our Tribune Rytlock lives, but he's been annoying me greatly since PoF.

Sure the game is fun and I don't even think those turns are particularly bad.
But I'd say my main has been dead inside for a long time.

I do like Marjory. Bet she dies.

Edited December 11, 2021 by deatine.2498