The prologue is a waste of both the developers' time and ours.

[Rose.2593]

It's interesting and setting the scene, lots of bits of history and background, at least we know whats going on more, and it's nice they are trying new things with searching for things on the map and stuff again, and the new area in front of the camp looks amazing, could have done with findng all the books in the camp though, but hopefully thats fixed soon! The field report is missing:(

[Danikat.8537]

I appreciated getting an update on previous storylines and how events pregressing off-screen ties into what's happening now. Complaints that Anet forgot various characters and storylines are very common so I think it's good they caught us up on some of them when an opportunity came up, and it also opened up possibilities for new storylines in future. (Personally I'm very curious about the Elonian expeditions into Dzalana.)

[Noidea Incognito.9607]

Which title would cover the Original Post essence best:

"The prologue is a waste of both the developers' time and ours."  

Or

"The prologue is a waste of MY time and the developer should have spend their time better"

 

I am asking cause it's kinda hard to know if the Developer indeed shares your idea/opinion of having wasted time on a prologue.

Edited August 20 by Noidea Incognito.9607

[Chyro.1462]

2 hours ago, darksome.1697 said:

I liked it, but what annoys me the most is that you get a big chunk of exp at the end of it, but the Mastery tracks are still locked so it goes into.... thin air?

 

Fun thing is, you could actually save that mastery exp reward chest by not accepting the reward and leaving the instance. It stays above minimap. Can then open it once the first mastery track is unlocked. But that's probably too late for most by now. I had mine wasted, but then adviced my friend to keep the reward chest ^^

But yeah, really an oversight that they reward this with no mastery track unlocked.

[Knighthonor.4061]

agree with OP

[Chichimec.9364]

3 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Wow... That explains why today's youth barely reads books anymore: an utter lack of patience and appreciation for proper story development! 😱 It's also why many movies from the past 10-15 years feel so boring: no proper story-telling, pacing or character depth, just action scenes and tons special effects. This saddens me.

"proper story development"...Hmmm. I'm a genuinely old school Boomer who will be turning 75 next month. I started reading/watching sci fi and fantasy in the 1950s and have continued to do so until this day. Proper story development? Well, I read Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and Tolkien in the 50s, Herbert in the 60's, as well as Martin in the 90's and 2000s. Compared to real story telling, most of the Anet devs' work is more on the fair to middling level, with chunks of their storylines descending to the godawful level, i.e. parts of the Icebrood Saga, EoD, and much of SotO. At this point, I've made it into the second chapter of JW and so far the story strikes me as fair to middling.

The bigger disappointment to me personally is that they put the acquisition of the homestead in chapter 3, while putting the warclaw and the spear in the storyline before that. The homestead is what really had me excited about this expansion and I was eager to get to it but haven't quite made it there yet. As for the warclaw and the spear, I already have the warclaw from WvW and am not that interested in the spear. Though I have to add that I know this is really a matter of personal preference as there are a lot of folks who are just the reverse. They are eager for the spear and/or the warclaw while not being interested in the homestead. It's a matter of different strokes for different folks, as is Anet's storytelling. Some folks like it, some don't.

[Ashantara.8731]

6 hours ago, RagiNagi.1802 said:

what does voiced video-game have to do with books..

The same that voiced video game RPGs have to do with pen & paper role-playing: atmosphere. It's either there or it isn't. For it to be there, you need a proper build-up that piques your interest for what is to come. I think JW did a decent job in that regard.

6 hours ago, Sonderm.4639 said:

"Proper story development" - do you read anything besides Twilight?

I've never read Twilight. I am not interested in cheesy teen-vampire nonsense.

Also, my comparison of GW2 related quality of writing is to the kind of writing we have had in the very game so far. I am not saying that anything in GW2 has the quality of some of the great novels out there. 😉 That is not within my expectations of GW2's writing. I was merely talking about the contents and pacing of the Prologue, and "boring" was a term I did not associate with it, that's all.

I think the build-up suited the atmosphere of the expac (or what I have seen of it so far). It piqued my interest, and the characters of the new Tyrian Alliance had an interesting chemistry. I, for one, was the opposite of bored.

P.S. I am not opposed to a Skip option for follow-up playthroughs, by the way. I just found the claim of utter boredom on the first playthrough misplaced. To me, it sounds like the real complaint was, "I want to get to my new Homestead immediately, do you hear me? So stop bothering me with actual dialogue!" 😄

Edited August 21 by Ashantara.8731

[Redfeather.6401]

I don't know if anyone feels the same as me, but I really found the tyrian assembly part boring. I was skipping anything I could halfway through it. But I really found the Kodan village introduction to be interesting. I talked to each of the Kodan leaders at the table and thought it was really well done.

[Zavijah.2695]

6 hours ago, darkwombat.3695 said:

I am a "boomer" (54 years old) who reads books, watches movies and games and prefers a good story with interesting introduction to characters.

The intro to Janthir was the worst hour Ive ever spent in media.

Then you'd know, at your age, you aren't a Boomer.

I'm also dismayed you clearly lack the attention span to take in the first couple hours of an expansion without having an ounce of grace of visiting the moment, knowing it's temporary - before you can go back to bashing things or grinding whatever farm you are fixated on.

As an older person as well, you should know enough that the time to make the dialogue and small video did Not significantly impact development time.

If you are as versed as you say you are in video games and this has been pointless, I'd very much like to draw your attention to the storylines of WoW and FFXIV - go on, read their forums...because apparently everyone has a kittening agenda as an armchair novelist.

Sit down.

[Carrot.5802]

I like the prologue a lot. I do actually happen to wonder sometimes what the places we haven't been to in a while are up to, and it was nice to see old faces again as well as find out what everyone's been up to since we disappeared in soto

[Izaak.3945]

Why can't they just allow to click-interrupt/move on to the next talking points rapidly vs having to sit through that absolutely useless chatter?  When Isgarren showed up with his long drawn out monologue, JFC.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I was thinking about this. It's probably easy enough to allow a skip button IF everyone is stationary and doing nothing as they are talking because it's pretty easy to end one audio file and start another.

However, if anything else is happening, NPCs are arriving, sitting down, standing up, a fire is being lit, whatever, then the problem gets massively harder because you need your action scripting engine to be able to fast forward and jump everyone/everything to where they need to be for the start of the next bit of speech.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

I really appreciated the racial lore updates and envoys from Elona and Cantha. Some of these storylines have felt neglected over the past years. We haven't gotten an update on sylvari as a race since what, HOT, 9 years ago? I actually wish we could have explored it more.

[Biziut.3594]

Party with someone on the map -> tp to friend -> profit?

Also why there is never a compromise with ppls who hate the story. It's always "cut this, change thay becouse I want it". Why not just ask for a skip button.

[Gehenna.3625]

11 hours ago, darkwombat.3695 said:

I am a "boomer" (54 years old) who reads books, watches movies and games and prefers a good story with interesting introduction to characters.

The intro to Janthir was the worst hour Ive ever spent in media.

You're Gen X if you're 54 but you seem to be correct in calling yourself a Boomer nonetheless 

[yoni.7015]

11 hours ago, darkwombat.3695 said:

 

I am a "boomer" (54 years old

 

Maybe start behaving like that and not like a toddler because you have to listen to some story. 

[Kulvar.1239]

12 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

There is a reason we got tiktok and youtube shorts etc mate

You got it wrong. We got tiktok and youtube shorts because it fries the brain of people into an endless rush for the next dopamine hit which prevent people from doing anything else but get enslaved to the quick garbage content.

[Hemi.5267]

I loved the prologue too... It's nice to see my old friends and hear whats been going on. SoTO was more difficult in that regard, I couldn't get into it for a long time. This catch-up with older storylines was great imo, and immersed me very effectively.

[Rose Solane.1027]

I don't think the prologue is much of a waste of the players time. The part before LA is relatively short (at least it was for my Sylvari). Most of the story in LA is either skippable or is a cut scene. I think it only takes a few minutes if you want to skip all optional dialogue. Is that so bad for the start of a new expansion?

I don't see how this is more of a waste of developers time then many other aspects of the game. I don't play PvP and I don't do raids, fractals or convergences. So developer's time spend on those parts of the game are a waste of time for me. I do like open world content including story so I think this is developer's time well spend. See my point?

[Ashen.2907]

2 hours ago, Rose Solane.1027 said:

I don't think the prologue is much of a waste of the players time. The part before LA is relatively short (at least it was for my Sylvari). Most of the story in LA is either skippable or is a cut scene. I think it only takes a few minutes if you want to skip all optional dialogue. Is that so bad for the start of a new expansion?

I don't see how this is more of a waste of developers time then many other aspects of the game. I don't play PvP and I don't do raids, fractals or convergences. So developer's time spend on those parts of the game are a waste of time for me. I do like open world content including story so I think this is developer's time well spend. See my point?

Yeah the title is poorly phrased but keep in mind that you can skip pvp/raids/etc and still play the open world that you want but others cannot skip an unskippable prologue to play the open world they want.

[HotDelirium.7984]

This prologue was badly needed. So much story debt its crushing the plot. Finally addressing all the elephants in the room was refreshing but I hope we go even further. Actually healing the Pale Tree, Bangar's trial, the Norn helping the spirits of the wild. But ANET, remember, we want to see it not hear about it.

[Whitaker.3019]

13 hours ago, Smurfiness.3714 said:

The solution for those who don't care for story is very simple. Go LFG and look for someone leading a group doing events in the new map. Port over and explore as much as you want. Of course you'd lose out on Mastery Points that come with completing stories. 

You cant even unlock the masteries unless you finish the story parts to unlock them, if this wasn't gated there would be no issue because the launch of the expansion wouldn't be locked behind garbage.

[Mieke.9125]

I disagree too. I really enjoyed the dialogues and the interactions. It wasn't boring or too long at all. In fact, I love Tyrian politics and I was captivated by the story from the first moment. Great job, Anet! 

[Gaiawolf.8261]

Only part I wanted to skip was when the queen's pet mesmer opened her mouth. Can I block her, please? 😆 No, for real.

[Zok.4956]

15 hours ago, Raven Paradox.1860 said:

Game of Thrones season 8 was better than the first 50 minutes of Janthir

I can't say anything about that because I deleted season 8 from my memories. 

Sure, GW2's storytelling is unlikely to win an Oscar/Emmy/literary award, etc. If you compare it to such standards, you will probably be disappointed. But if you compare this to the previous storytelling in GW2, I would consider it a (significant) improvement.