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

[anninke.7469]

I also disagree with the OP. I enjoyed the prologue quite a lot, learned some good stuff and overall had fun.

[Zok.4956]

4 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

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

Yes, the classifications are more about a way of thinking/behavior than a specific year of birth. 

[Teppo.9203]

If I wanted to read a book, I'd read a book...

The start of this expac is interminable.

[anninke.7469]

1 minute ago, Zok.4956 said:

Yes, the classifications are more about a way of thinking/behavior than a specific year of birth. 

Well, I would leave generations out of this. I believe age has much less to do with thinking/behaviour than we usually credit it for.

[Zok.4956]

16 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.

That says more about you than it says about the introduction to Janthir. I have read and seen much worse. Also in GW2. 

[Noidea Incognito.9607]

*Peers into an Ancient Kodan Artifact* 

"One could say one's current likes/dislikes is strongly tied to the "Mental Age".... The Physical Appearance can be a reflection of this. 

(even Physically Young Aged Humans can have the Mental Age of a Wise Old Cleric/Druid)

 

"When i was a child, i played like a child, when i became a man i put childish thing away" is how the classic saying goes.

While this saying has nothing to do with video game in its entirety; i do believe that the people that disliked the whole story thing, might have simply "outgrown" the whole concept of what is means delve into the wonder lust/total immersion rp thing.

In other words; A Player that is mentally too mature; is most likely no longer capable/willing to show appreciation for such a lengthy exposition of story telling that the Dev is trying to convey to its audience."  

 

*The Artifact shatters into a thousand pieces....*

Edited August 21 by Noidea Incognito.9607

[Cuks.8241]

1 hour ago, Noidea Incognito.9607 said:

While this saying has nothing to do with video game in its entirety; i do believe that the people that disliked the whole story thing, might have simply "outgrown" the whole concept of what is means delve into the wonder lust/total immersion rp thing.

I love a good story. Fantasy or otherwise. Read practically my whole life everyday, various genres. Not so much into movies but I do watch the ones I really like. One thing is immersing yourself into a good story. Completely another is what we get served here.

You can start slowly. I actually really like slow burns long world and character building, I think more than most judging by the general feedback on some of the stories I like. This is not it. Bad dialogue, no character and really bad jokes.

[Noidea Incognito.9607]

@Cuks.8241 That's maybe why its a problem for (some) players.

Their knowledge and understanding of what makes a good story perhaps "outgrows" the intended scope/restrained ambition of this mmo-arpg's story/lore?

But leaving those criteria out of the equation for a moment:

In your opinion: Is this a proper story  for the general masses / Mainstream purposes ?( MMO's are bigger then just you and me. Dev needs to take the entire community in consideration.)

Edited August 21 by Noidea Incognito.9607

[RagiNagi.1802]

for all those who think that prologue is a drag. Wait until you get to chapter 3. My gosh. While I was ok with Prologue tying up the events and races. Chapter 3 has been the longes hour in my gaming life.

[hollywoodenspoon.8436]

On 8/21/2024 at 4:59 AM, 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.

doubt

[Zenith.7301]

MMORPGs where unfortunately players forget about the RP part.

This isn't your precious Souls game or an arpg.

 

There was nothing wrong with the prologue. It was actually nice your origin race was acknowledged.

 

I wish they had even included the long forgotten Priory/Order of Whispers/Vigil.

[Redfeather.6401]

I just saw a sponsored stream from a Vtuber named Filian. She is pretty popular and was the host of the Vtuber awards. So, she is playing GW2's Janther Wild's and the prologue was so boring chat started complaining and she ditched it to play wvw. Her viewer numbers went down to half of what they normally are during that stream. Eventually she just said, "well that's enough" and chat was "goodbye forever gw2!". 😣

[nCmixam.8025]

On 8/20/2024 at 10:54 PM, Tachenon.5270 said:

The intro bit with the dignitaries was bearable. Ahem. For a first time play through, anyway.  Later on in bear town, though, when I saw all the kodan guys sitting around that table, each waiting for a turn to introduce themselves, well, I knew what was coming...

Silly Hyperbolic Emulation of the Experience (read it like a youtube video set at 0.5 playback speed):

"Oh, hi! I'm Chatty Windbag! I live here in Bear Town with my brother, Blabbermouth Ramble, and my other brother, Blabbermouth Ramble. Our father was Boring Monologue of the Bear Town Monologues. He married our mother, By The Way Off On A Tangent after they got into a fight about warclaw cubs: are they cute, or are they adorable? Never did settle it, either. Still a hot topic point of contention between them to this very day. But that's what keeps their relationship alive. They raised us on a  bean farm. I love beans. But my brother, Boring Monologue, says they make him gassy. Well, duh. That's what makes them so great! My other brother, Boring Monologue, likes to eat his beans one at a time. With a toothpick. Made of old growth mahogany finished with a 'thin skin' coat of nitrocellulose lacquer. Yeah, forget about that modern day polyurethane stuff. Might as well dip it in plastic. Tone woods gotta breathe, ya know. But enough about my brothers, let me tell you more about myself. This one time, at band camp, I got my head stuck in a pickle jar..."

/sleep

Fortunately, that one seems like a one time and done deal.

This.
Intro is whatever. But those bears, they just talk so slow. Like, this is just bloat.

[RagiNagi.1802]

2 hours ago, Zenith.7301 said:

MMORPGs where unfortunately players forget about the RP part.

This isn't your precious Souls game or an arpg.

In this case it is not the players, it is the developers.

GW2 is not a role playing game - it is a graphic novel. In the story sense (which is what everyone is arguing about) - your choices don't matter, your actions don't matter, your character does not matter (it barely gets acknowledged). There are countless of instances where you can literally go afk and your NPC's progress the story. You don't develop your character. There are handful of instances where you can chose what to answer to a question. All of them lead to exactly the same outcome. You couldn't even chose whether you'd be called Commander or Wayfinder when talking with Kodans. 

What you can do, is dress up your character and load new profession skills. Now also build a home. That is only a sliver of RPG. Unless we consider Need For Speed as role-playing game as well.

DPS, Condi, ALAC HEAL, Hand Kiter are also roles to play. They don't do much for story development though.

 

[Artemis.8034]

On 8/20/2024 at 3:59 PM, 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.

Umm thats not a boomer hate to tell you thats gen x just saying https://www.britannica.com/topic/Generation-X

[RyasmaRaven.6018]

I feel like the people complaining are forgetting the world and characters experience things outside of the player character? Of course Tyria would be concerned about the Kryptis. Of course they would try to figure out what to do about it, and of course they would invite the Commander. Our character is a political figure whether we like it or not, so it makes complete sense story wise for the meeting. And as many pointed out, you only need to do it once and you can skip a LOT of the dialogue.

If we didn't have something like this, others would be up in arms about the lore implications of the Tyrian nations just ignoring the kryptis threat lmao

If you don't want the lore, which is fair, then you can skip it. 😅

[Westenev.5289]

While I found the first 2 chapters interesting, I wish this game had a skip button. I don't want to replay an exposition dump.

[Cuks.8241]

14 hours ago, Noidea Incognito.9607 said:

@Cuks.8241 That's maybe why its a problem for (some) players.

Their knowledge and understanding of what makes a good story perhaps "outgrows" the intended scope/restrained ambition of this mmo-arpg's story/lore?

But leaving those criteria out of the equation for a moment:

In your opinion: Is this a proper story  for the general masses / Mainstream purposes ?( MMO's are bigger then just you and me. Dev needs to take the entire community in consideration.)

I don't play gw2 for story. There are bits that were interesting but that's about it.

I can't judge what is suitable for general masses. It looks like many like it and can immerse themselves in it and that is fine. I'm not trying to judge anyone, there is cheese I really like and there is serious literature I can't tackle at all and also other way around. It's really personal preference. 

I also don't try to compare game stories to literature. It's a different medium. For example I really liked Planescape Torment, played it 5+ times and tried to do every bit of story possible. The book was terrible though. I couldn't get through the first few chapters. It was also badly written. Style is important and how it connects to the medium.

Now what I don't like is when I have to listen or read through something I don't like. And this is the critique I have for the intro (and based on my guild many were suffering through it). I have my opinion on the quality (it's bad) but that's just me. And now I'm trapped in this slow and static delivery. Also I don't know why since Soto every optional dialogue has an achievement behind. From what I remember in the past this only happened once in a while. But now everything. Yeah you can skip it and forget about those few AP. I actually prefer if I can read the optionals and judge if it's worth reading or not and not being trapped into slow monologue that can't be skipped and puts everything else on pause.

[Nosy.2056]

On 8/20/2024 at 11:31 PM, Raven Paradox.1860 said:

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

And season 8 was pretty bad 🤢

Edited August 22 by Nosy.2056
typo

[Jeir.4862]

I enjoyed the prologue, for the most part. It was nice to see old friends/allies and get updates, and as has been pointed out several times in this thread, there were always options to just skip to the 'important' parts (go to podium, don't ask about race updates). The only parts I did find a little tedious were the warclaw capturing thing (four times was a bit too much, but that was more frustration rather than boredom), and the dialogue of Wry Lichen(?), which did go on longer than I'd have liked. Everything else was enjoyable/interesting, and exploring is a lot of fun, especially with the warclaw.

But, given there are 'so many' people who hate story...how about a new game version, just for them. Right at the beginning, they get an option to 'skip story', where they then get teleported to each instance where all dialogue is gone and they just get objectives (or maybe just teleported in front of the main combat objective), do this 5 or so times, then confetti everywhere, job done. No dialogue, no information about who or what or where a certain character is, nothing about who or what the big bad is, no lore at all, just pure mindless combat.

Or they can just...y'know, use the skip options that are already available, or tab out for a bit and come back later when it's over. This is an RPG, after all, and those typically come with heavy story content. 

Edited August 22 by Jeir.4862

[Zorric.5704]

Hard disagree with OP.

SotO felt like it thrust so many new things at us with characters, lore, and the Kryptis that it was hard to relate to what was happening. They did straight to fighting in SotO as well and... I didn't really enjoy it much. One of the last things I said about SotO was it needed to pull back and catch us up to the world and bring back some familiarity to anchor our characters.

Janthir Wilds delivered. Huge lore dump, character growth, and much more for players to chew on and speculate right from the start. I think the story for this expansion, while long, was totally worth it for the writers and developers. Loved so much about the direction the story is going and the new characters actually melding with the old. Truly felt like we were making things happen and taking our time understanding the world of Tyria a bit more after all the fighting. Even the fights in the story seemed more inline with moving the story this time and making us have a purpose that didn't feel forced. I can't wait to see where this expansion is going story-wise even if it does take a bit longer to listen or read through everything. I think the world will feel more alive this way.

[Nosy.2056]

4 minutes ago, Zorric.5704 said:

Hard disagree with OP.

SotO felt like it thrust so many new things at us with characters, lore, and the Kryptis that it was hard to relate to what was happening. They did straight to fighting in SotO as well and... I didn't really enjoy it much. One of the last things I said about SotO was it needed to pull back and catch us up to the world and bring back some familiarity to anchor our characters.

Janthir Wilds delivered. Huge lore dump, character growth, and much more for players to chew on and speculate right from the start. I think the story for this expansion, while long, was totally worth it for the writers and developers. Loved so much about the direction the story is going and the new characters actually melding with the old. Truly felt like we were making things happen and taking our time understanding the world of Tyria a bit more after all the fighting. Even the fights in the story seemed more inline with moving the story this time and making us have a purpose that didn't feel forced. I can't wait to see where this expansion is going story-wise even if it does take a bit longer to listen or read through everything. I think the world will feel more alive this way.

While I respect your opinion I have the complete opposite opinion, like I stated in another post ...
 

Quote

There are plenty of ppl telling, they didn't like SotO story and enjoyed the Janthir Prologue quite a bit.

How? In the first stages of SotO you

  Hide contents

sneaked into a camp, learned about the astral ward and even fought Cerus.

Let me experience the story myself. This is not a light novel, it's a game. Give me story bits while I'm exploring the area - I don't like reading/listening to voiced dictionaries and I would think ppl who bought a DLC of a game would feel similarly.

 

[Laken.9018]

So far the Prologue and a later equivalent of it have been some of my fave bits of the expansion.
I play this game for the world and lore and so to get an hour of just soaking it up, getting a feeling of what threads are being laid down, peoples angles and disagreements.
It's just tasty tasty immersion food.

[Hemi.5267]

@Jeir.4862

3 pages of a few complaints isn't representative of the entire GW2 playerbase, so I think we're good. I loved all the lore including the slow talking bears. And no I am not white-knighting anything, as SoTO did not grab my attention... ever actually. I was glad to be done with the masteries. This one is so much better. 

[Portico.2354]

While I also would prefer that there be no large exposition dumps (or if there are give me something else to do while listening), I am more forgiving of the prologue here than Soto because it’s about already established characters and plot lines. We had no reason to care whatsoever about all the exposition from the kryptis.