[2023] I have come to the conclusion that the narrative team is trapped in a fractal.

Originally posted by PM_ME_YOUR_MESMER

I think my gripe with the story is that nothing happens unless we, the commander, make it happen.

Tell me about another huge threat on Divinity's Reach, and how Logan and Rytlock, along with a couple of our favourite characters handled it and that we don't need to worry about it. These guys are meant to be heroes, undoubtedly people that our own Commander grew up hearing the tales of their adventures. They shouldn't need me to help them out at every turn.

The only instance of this I can think of is when Braham took his party up north to fight Jormag. Sure, but it's not enough.

Let the world move on around us. Have a monthly "movement of the world" blog that we can read on a website even. There are definitely more threats around Tyria (and beyond), let me hear about them.

Originally posted by ghoulbakura

That's because it has. At several points in GW2's history they cycled through a new writer every couple of months. The writers in charge of the best story beats in the game no longer work there. We're now stuck with a lead who thinks the height of story deliverance is to ensure that the commander can't go a single conversation without hearing a minimum of five sassy remarks and three jokes. It's like the worst parts of Marvel's writing on steroids, and this appears to be it from here on in - there was a good amount of feedback after EoD that people struggled to connect with the story due to the characters feeling the need to deliver a one-liner almost every time they spoke but clearly Anet felt they know better.

Originally posted by rym1469

It doesn't help that a lot of the more recent writing has been using modern lingo and acronyms that destroy immersion you might've had. When a character in a fantasy game starts talking like my coworker, it stings. Hopefully we won't get to tik tok vocabulary next, fr fr.

Also, NPC 4th wall breaking self-awarness sometimes doesn't make any favors either. Even in this patch, hearing Rama remark how we go for the trope of defeating boss with a power of friendship. I get it, occassionally this may be funny since it is a video game, but when too common and combined with null feeling of threat, it's only annoying.

Originally posted by Poskmyst

Yea to me personally, that communication device might have been the worst addition to the narrative in the entire game. I hate it.

I understand that its very convenient for them, they can have characters communicate with each other without having them get together or send mail. They rely on it constantly and if they did not have it they would have to tell their stories in a very different way.

I just hate how small it makes the world feel, how "modern" it makes it feel. Time and space means less.

Guild wars is a game where you always zip around instantly, going from activity to activity, the distances and travel is noneexistant. Its sad to me that the story is treated the same way.

The commander and gorrick can be in Cantha one minute and then in rata sum the other just to look at some of Blishs papers. The journey between contintents being of zero concern due to waypoints and Asura gates being part of the Lore.

And similarly we can communicate in real time over all that distance.

It makes it easier for the devs, they could never have made something like going back to Rata sum for something tiny like they did this patch without these things. But it just makes the world feel less "grounded". I dont know exactly, I just know im not a fan.

Ugh I hate how all my comments about Gw2 recently have been so negative, I love this game.

Originally posted by Poskmyst

And its addition has seemingly 0 rammifications on the world at large when it should be a massive world changing event as you say. Yet it seems as if though only destiny 2.0 are the ones using it.

The fact that I have never really concidered this before is almost worse. We see so little of how this world works that it is not even odd that we don't see how it would change after the intercom is invented.

Yes, yes scope. But could we at least get to see something that could convince us thay Tyria is an actual world with its own internal logic.

Most of the writing budget focuses on the interdrama a handful of characters that acts as if they live in California but with Elder dragons. Those characters are at the very least the center of the story. I wish that the world was in the center instead, I feel like its a lot easier to pull that off in an MMO, especially one where the character driven parts of the story has to be told with voice acting.

Originally posted by rym1469

Yeah, I get that he's snarky and it may be in his character to have this meta commentary. But coupled with all the other 4th wall stuff like the MVP, BS and a few others it felt a bit too much in one episode. Maybe that's why it stuck in my memory.

Originally posted by EnslavedPudding

Ideally we're creating environments and populating them with characters, events, and lore discoverables that make the world feel rich.

What, like the desolate new kaineng city?

You can see how this leads to a situation where it's impossible to deliver both in every patch

So instead you chose the worst of both worlds?

Curious to see what people think of the next couple releases once they're out.

Considering how badly you've handled the story since eod, we're all very excited to see just how bad the "slightly cheaper for a lot less cocntent" expansions will be.

Its also astounding you allowed someone to make the statement that basically admits to being creatively braindead in regards to elite specializations. Dropping them because you cant think of anything cool is absolutely laughable.

Originally posted by EnslavedPudding

You're saying there aren't NPCs, ambient scenes, events, or interactive things in the city?

For all intents and purposes, Yeah thats what im saying. Theres a few npcs around, but for how the city is presented, its basically abandoned. There should be hundreds of npcs visible in any given area, instead its predominantly empty space.

its a ghost town, and as a result its uninteresting and boring. Why are there no automatic skiffs moving cargo around for example? who are all those rivers for? or bridges? I get that the coders you have today are far less competent than the people that worked for arenanet in 2012 and you have to deal with it, but reality is that their incompetence resulted in you having to limit the amount of visible mobs, and as a result the city feels dead. And part of this is your fault as well - You could've worked around this with a story reason, perhaps the jade started decaying and somehow became toxic to people, Or some bullshit that explained why most people are indoors, but nope. the loading screen has more people on it than any actual area once you load in.

How would you solve it?

Theres nothing to be done at this point without incredibly creative problem solving which is beyond me. There are so many individual problems that add up - You wrote yourself into a cornerr through 20 different mistakes years earlier. taimi can solve any problem, Our character is basically full of themselves and can solve any problem and literally came back from the dead. Apparently they now are traumatized, despite showing no meaningful sign of this previously - it doesnt make sense because although being traumatized makes sense, pulling it out of your ass all of a sudden DOESNT make sense. Why does our character give a shit about vlast of all people but trahearne is largely ignored entirely for 8 years despite him being in many ways our mentor and helping us fight zhaitan, and dying a rather horrifying death at OUR hand?

There are so many individual problems that collectively add up, you've borked the story so hard i have no idea how you're going to fix it.