Fantasy politics are always more interesting than big dumb evil threats.

[Aodlop.1907]

Conflicts between intelligent species and factions that have no overpowered God among them tend to make for better storytelling and more engaging plots.

Humanoid bosses also tend to be better MMORPG bosses. With oversized threats, you always need to find some weird, clunky way to defeat them and it often leads to poor gameplay.

Think of most Elder dragons. Fighting Balthazar in the PoF story felt better than fighting any of them, even though he was poorly developed as a character as well.

 

It's not really a GW2 statement as much as it's a fantasy statement in general. Game of Throne's white walkers are so boring compared to all the political intricacies south of the wall.

WarCraft III's story was way more interesting than any WoW expansion's story about defeating 1 big bad guy ever were. 

 

I can enjoy big dumb monsters when they're just that one dragon in a cave terrorizing local  farmers, but when they're the major lore threat...not so much.

[Quench.7091]

Spoiler

Lyssa is mad at us for killing Balthazar. Joko told us that the dragons were important, so the gods that tried to stop Balthazar are also probably mad at us, as we killed 3 dragons after killing Balthazar.

I've got a feeling that we're going to be in a spank or be spanked situation. I hope we don't end up killing every powerful lore character in existence. That said, Guild Wars has a very unique thing in their lore. The magic doesn't disappear. It lingers around and creates new threats.

I hope they can push that side of things to create new stories and villain characters with it. We've cut a lot of loose ends and might need some more. World of Warcraft does have an issue where their best moments are killing  their Warcraft RTS characters and then failing to replace them, so they end up retconning them or writing them back into play. Luckily, I think the GW2 story crew made a load of interesting characters. They just need to make more of them into villains far in advance, so they do not get the last second Smodur treatment.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

I wish we would see an antagonist on the commanders level of power. 

 

He is freaking powerful but the enemy is either God level or face roll. 

 

 

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

9 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

I wish we would see an antagonist on the commanders level of power. 

 

He is freaking powerful but the enemy is either God level or face roll. 

 

 

Bangar Ruinbringer? (commanders level of influence)

or...

Ryland Steelcatcher?(commander's level of power)

 

 

[Quench.7091]

7 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

I wish we would see an antagonist on the commanders level of power. 

 

He is freaking powerful but the enemy is either God level or face roll. 

 

 

Bangar and Ryland seemed to be reasonable enemies for the commander. Too bad the most diplomatic charr spazzed out in a diplomatic meeting, resulting in full blown warfare and making the story feel a bit too forced.

[Yggranya.5201]

Politics? It wouldn't be humanly possible to create anything less interesting than politics. Ugh...

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

16 minutes ago, Quench.7091 said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Lyssa is mad at us for killing Balthazar. Joko told us that the dragons were important, so the gods that tried to stop Balthazar are also probably mad at us, as we killed 3 dragons after killing Balthazar.

I've got a feeling that we're going to be in a spank or be spanked situation. I hope we don't end up killing every powerful lore character in existence. That said, Guild Wars has a very unique thing in their lore. The magic doesn't disappear. It lingers around and creates new threats.

I hope they can push that side of things to create new stories and villain characters with it. We've cut a lot of loose ends and might need some more. World of Warcraft does have an issue where their best moments are killing  their Warcraft RTS characters and then failing to replace them, so they end up retconning them or writing them back into play. Luckily, I think the GW2 story crew made a load of interesting characters. They just need to make more of them into villains far in advance, so they do not get the last second Smodur treatment.

 

got an interesting turn of events for gw2.... wait for it.... 

 

Spoiler

Aliens 🤣😂

 

copied the line from "Bolt" the disney movie where the pigeons give ideas to bolt about the next level of movies. Ridonculous right? 🤣😂

 

and about warcraft, after arthas became the deathknight, I dropped the game never went for whatever that came after.

 

 

[Mik.3401]

I agree. Fighting a huge pile of gunk and rocks is really, really boring. All races are living happily together, there seems to be little frictions/ global and regional changes going on - the world is plastic and stale. It feels extremely artificial. I suppose they just wanted to Netflix the relations between different groups which left them with pretty much nothing.

To me the core maps/cities feel kind of immersive as they provide promise of exploring a world full of detail. But as you move to expansions it is just a game with maps feeling dead inside with little going on apart from mobs and combat. RPGs from like 1990s can do better job in this regard.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Mik.3401

[DanAlcedo.3281]

14 minutes ago, Crystal Paladin.3871 said:

Bangar Ruinbringer? (commanders level of influence)

or...

Ryland Steelcatcher?(commander's level of power)

 

 

Ryland is not even close to the commanders power.  Not even as a dragon champion. 

(In dragon storm yes) 

 

Banger has influence on a part of one race. 

 

We have influence on all of them. 

[DanAlcedo.3281]

13 minutes ago, Quench.7091 said:

Bangar and Ryland seemed to be reasonable enemies for the commander. Too bad the most diplomatic charr spazzed out in a diplomatic meeting, resulting in full blown warfare and making the story feel a bit too forced.

 

Banger is a joke and the commander would destroy Ryland in a 1v1.

 

The commander has 9 years of war experience under his belt. 

 

Ryland has some training under Banger. 

 

The commander has masterd 2 elite specs. 

 

Ryland is just a Charr Warrior. 

 

Even his Toy Sword is just a big piece of metal. 

 

We would delete this kitty in notime. 

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

1 minute ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Ryland is not even close to the commanders power.  Not even as a dragon champion. 

(In dragon storm yes) 

 

Banger has influence on a part of one race. 

 

We have influence on all of them. 

every boss in the game is far powerful than the commander... commander can easily use waypoints if dead and continue the fight.. but those bosses neither use waypoints nor any revival orbs .. X) 

 

and not to mention downstates.. imagine ryland going downstate and few ice giants come to rezz/revive him... and if ppl try to stomp finish, they would just indefinitely pull a john cena "U can't see me" body slam on the area until their stacks of stability gets used up and getting kicked like a ball 🤣😂

[Dante.1763]

Well written politics can be more interesting certainly, but i dont think anet could pull it off well. The few times they tried werent the best. Id love to see them pull off a well written story though.

[Teratus.2859]

18 hours ago, Aodlop.1907 said:

It's not really a GW2 statement as much as it's a fantasy statement in general. Game of Throne's white walkers are so boring compared to all the political intricacies south of the wall.

I don't think it's a fantasy problem.. I'd say it's just a poor writing one.

Personally I really enjoyed Game of Thrones up until the final season as did a lot of people.
Really didn't help that they had no source material to work with at that point since the books the show is based on only go so far.

Gw2 has suffered some poor writing over time, be that just lacking inspiration, writers block or more to do with rushing and deadlines etc.
Ice Brood Saga is definitely one of the worst displays of this in Gw2, us fans have made no attempts to hide this.
2 Elder Dragons at once should have been the most epic thing to ever happen in this game.. especially after Kralkatorrik was done so superbly well.
Hell even Jormag building up to this point was really awesome and everyone who's been around since the GW1 days was hyped as hell to see Primordus again.
It was literally one of those.. "they can't possibly screw this up now" moments and yet they did.. they screwed up monumentally.

We can blame the writers.. we can blame the deadlines and the crunch it really doesn't matter in the end.
What matters is that this disappointment is forever in the game until someone at Anet manages to convince someone else that it's worth going back to fix.. and for the love of god I hope they do it.

The way I see it is this.. if you're going to make a game or a movie or TV show.. whatever.. that is about these giant threats, that will feature these colossal creatures of world ending power and destruction.
You have to commit 110%!! to making sure that these things are done right.
There can be NO!! compromise with these creatures.. as much time and money and effort that they require to be done right must be provided and allowed for, even if that means you have to delay content for a while.
It will always be the better alternative in the long run to having chunks of bad content spoiling your game/product.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Teratus.2859

[DeanBB.4268]

3 hours ago, Mik.3401 said:

RPGs from like 1990s can do better job in this regard.

The advantage a single player RPG has over an MMO is that your character can change the world, but that can't happen in an MMO. In GW2, each map is frozen in a point in time -- has to be. Otherwise, there would be no Orr to be cleansed, since the first person to do so in 2012 would have changed the map forever. 

 

I think Anet's original vision for the game was for permanent changes to keep happening, but unfortunately that didn't work out. It's bad enough that Season 1 is forever gone, imagine if that had been the case for everything that has released since. You would start the game and see all the relics of previous map changes (LA, Kessex, etc) but those would just be the maps, no story for you until the next episode is released, only "this is what happened" kind of lore.

[Dawdler.8521]

Maybe the next expansion story should be about how Kryta want to leave Pact because they dont feel sovereign enough and keep getting Quaggan immigrants in Divinitys Reach and they force through a vote to leave despite all Krytan territories except DR voting to stay but then it takes the living story 4 years to complete and when they have the withdrawal agreement in place they still dont like it and blaim everything on the Charr?

 

 

Edited July 21, 2021 by Dawdler.8521

[Gomes.5643]

I think the most critical part which I see in the world building is that they try to close everything so quickly. Events that would shake the foundation of the world are dealt with in a single episode.

 

Spoiler

The peace with the flame legion, the charr civil war, the resurface of the lost norn spirits and the fight between two elder dragons was done in a single seasons.

 

Same with Joko&Kralk in Season 4. Sometimes I would like if they could give some more time for the stories to unfold. In moment it feels like - big bad appears, is dealt with, next big bad appears, is also dealt with etc etc.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Gomes.5643

[Dante.1763]

1 minute ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Maybe the next expansion story should be about how Kryta want to leave Pact because they dont feel sovereign enough and keep getting Quaggan immigrants in Divinitys Reach and they force through a vote to leave despite all Krytan territories except DR voting to stay but then it takes the living story 4 years to complete and when they have the withdrawal agreement in place they still dont like it and blaim everything on the Charr?

 

 

That makes..0 sense.

[DeanBB.4268]

9 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Maybe the next expansion story should be about how Kryta want to leave Pact because they dont feel sovereign enough and keep getting Quaggan immigrants in Divinitys Reach and they force through a vote to leave despite all Krytan territories except DR voting to stay but then it takes the living story 4 years to complete and when they have the withdrawal agreement in place they still dont like it and blaim everything on the Charr?

 

 

Krexit? 😮

 

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, Crystal Paladin.3871 said:

got an interesting turn of events for gw2.... wait for it.... 

 

  Hide contents

Aliens 🤣😂

I'm almost afraid to reveal the shocking truth to you, but

Spoiler

It already happened. When humans arrived to Tyria.

 

Edited July 21, 2021 by Astralporing.1957

[Xanadrine.4352]

To add politics as a threat to game world you have to make some pretty big changes. Because minor political threats are just that, minor and have no real bearing or influence on the world as a whole. So it gets boring real fast. The only way to put in major political upheaval into the story big enough to justify whole zones dedicated to it is to split into factions. Example The Charr and their allies vs The Humans and their allies. The reason being the biggest factor in this game is the player character and their alliances , everything literally revolves around the player character, so political upheaval with the races would be world wide. Im not saying go all pvp in open world, far from it. This can all be accomplished with stories and open world quests or w/e you want to call them, assassinating leaders, spying, taking territory back, sieging towns taking over farms and still dealing with other threats like white mantle dragons w/e the plot within the plot sort of.  

 

Charr norn and possibly Kodan , and Human asura and sylvari  or any mix that makes sense and would band together. look going into cantha what was cantha about? Humans tossed everyone else out. That right there is the start of a volatile situation. Whats going to happen when the canthans humans see charr and sylvari and asura for cripes sake entering their territory. it makes no sense there would not be a war.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Zuldari.3940

[Mik.3401]

5 hours ago, DeanBB.4268 said:

The advantage a single player RPG has over an MMO is that your character can change the world, but that can't happen in an MMO. In GW2, each map is frozen in a point in time -- has to be. Otherwise, there would be no Orr to be cleansed, since the first person to do so in 2012 would have changed the map forever. 

 

I think Anet's original vision for the game was for permanent changes to keep happening, but unfortunately that didn't work out. It's bad enough that Season 1 is forever gone, imagine if that had been the case for everything that has released since. You would start the game and see all the relics of previous map changes (LA, Kessex, etc) but those would just be the maps, no story for you until the next episode is released, only "this is what happened" kind of lore.

I think if they thought it through carefully they would be able to introduce changes in relations between different parts of Tyria. They managed to change LA twice and then they settled with the current one - why? Since all of it became so static it doesn’t feel as immersive anymore

[DeanBB.4268]

Those changes were/are still frozen in time, though. Old/original LA > destroyed LA > new LA. No different, really.

They do changes through instances. You go to visit the Queen/Tribune/Tree and the instance reflects the current story point in time, even though you enter that instance through the map stuck in time. -Shrug- nothing for it, really, what choice is there?

[Jin.8501]

It's honestly a double edged sword. If you are shoe horned in to some kitten side then it's real turn off and ruins the whole game. Like in GW2. I prefer big dragons since the "good guys" are boring and cliché here

[Telgum.6071]

I wouldn't say they are more interesting, but is good to change. After many episodes of slaying dragons it is good to have some civil war conflict... until you realize there is another dragon behind it.

[radda.8920]

I totally agree, for example, the whole story of white mantle  and mursaats on gw1 (even the war in kryta) was a thousand times more interesting than the whole storyline of gw2.

there is potential with the empire in cantha and all the discriminatory politics but it will be botched to talk about a dragon again😅

 

the problem is that when the dragons will be all  dead, arena  will have used all the potential enemies linked to gw1 (and very poorly exploited) : white mantle, lazarus, Stone Summit, flame legion,joko, gods and probably the empire of cantha ...

 

And I don't believe they will be able to create new villains,  we saw what happened with scarlet. They have very few innovative ideas without using gw1 lore.

 

especially when you see how they massacred the charr lore during the saga, i no longer trust the game writers at all. Most of the good writers left after POF.

Edited July 21, 2021 by radda.8920