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Personal Story: The Weakest link of the chain?
Kalfer
Member Posts: 779
There is a big topic on the forums titled Cliche, Cheesy Script, - Boring Story; https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/story/Cliche-Cheesy-Script-Boring-Story/page/1
In it' a developer, Bobby Stein makes a lot of honest remarks about what they tried to do. He seems genuinely honest about appreciating the negative feedback.
In short, as far as that thread goes at least (but of course we don't know what the majority feels as they don't use forums) that the personal story was not well received, but on the other hand, it also seemed that expectations were not that high.
People seem to have the same problems with it like they had with TOR - Annoyed by their own characters voice acting (particularly Norn takes a lot of flake), bored by the writing of the Characters, and the plot holes.
Personally I have to agree with what is being said in the thread, and it seems that ArenaNet are aware as well. But Bobby Stein says that it's too late to change now as it would delay the shipped product. He says though that ArenaNet are aware of the fact that the standard your-a-hero-and-everyone-will-tell-you-constantly-how-awesome-you are:
"Again, this was a design decision to make the player a hero, so while you start out small in your story, you’re always driven to do the right thing (and everyone tells you about it). Totally understandable why that wouldn’t appeal to some people—it’s predictable.
I think the lesson we’re learning here is that people, including the dev team, are ready for something a little less sanitized. We can’t make radical changes to the story structure at this point, but we can certainly take this into account for future content."
Another thing that is really interesting is that he asks the community, about the Voice Acting contra GW1;
"In your opinion, is the writing and voice acting in Guild Wars 2 better or worse than the original Guild Wars? The reason I ask is that we changed our process a little from the first batch of games. Also, what stories are you comparing GW2 against? Thanks in advance."
IMO it's much better than GW1, but the characters are flat. At least so far. Thackery is seriously a flat 1 dimensional character. Many of the characters have a lot more edge to them in SWTOR.
But like TOR, the problem is the annoying illusion of choice.
Finally - Does any of you think that personal story does more harm than good? Think about it - Personal Story are instanced little scenarios that play out like WoW/SWTOR single player quests. In my mind they are a weak link in the chain. They don't utilize the greatness that is the events.
Fortunately nobody is forced to do the personal story. You can skip it after the tutorial, but I think it leaves a bad initial impression on some players. I thought I had to do it, because I thought the story was going to give me context, but I found the overall personal story plot that I had to be strangely vague and unimportant. At least so far. I felt like just going out in the world and do events and socialize. It felt like that was what the game was made for. That's were the unpredictable action and mayham came.
The cinematics, voice acting and and written dialog all didn't seem to speak in favor of what GW2 does well. Again - Personal Story can be ignored so it surely does not ruin anything. You can completely ignore it. You can do pvp, crafting, WvW, dungeons, DE's, hearts. Whatever the hell you want without the personal story getting in your way.
In SWTOR you were forced to do them. You couldnt complete key moments without the doing the quests. and that was basically the game, so for TOR it's a much bigger issue.
TL;DR - Good'n bad, how to fix and improve personal story? Did you like it? Didn't you - Why? Why not?
Comments
The voice acting is a bit corny and the cutscenes are a bit naff. BUT...
Having seen the alternatives, I will go with GW2's personal story "lite" any day.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
I was okay with the story! It wasn't as good as the other stuff, but it didn't bother me.
Not even the cutscene style (Maybe I've played so many old school JRPGs I've become immune to the style)
I think it helps to not look at it so much as 'this is the story of my character' as 'This are little side-vignettes where you can learn a little bit more about the world and people'
For example. Mesmer royalty are scary as HELL. So many illusions.
I was reading that thread.
He did also mention that the story's tone changes as you get higher. So while it's happy hero day in the beginning, it turns toward a more serious and epic storyline later.
However, I agree with you mostly. It was cheesy. It was childish. It didn't really have the same vibe as the rest of the game. But on the other hand, I'm glad it's there and I'm hoping they can improve upon it in the future.
It is another option in the wide array of options that hit you in the face when you start your character. I like the variety and who knows, maybe the story gets better.
Dunno about the others, but the storyline I did, by level 20 I was like 'Oh! Actually, that was like the best part so far and... WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S DONE?'. I was wondering if it would keep improving, just like the combat/DEs get better the further you go.
Personally, I feel that the personal story was not necessary in this game. It does a decent job of presenting the lore and such but ultimately it could have been done away with. I didn't get far into the story, I stopped at about level 8 as I didn't want to spoil it for myself at release but the only redeeming factor for me is the personalized home istance. Especially if it does change based on your choices.
I've tried the first few missions in all 3 races and so far the charr story is much better than the human and the norn although the writing and the voice acting still leaves much to be desired. Interestingly enough, the various random NPCs around the world are much better voiced than the main characters in the story.
The magic show in the first part of the human noble's storyline was funny though. Also, human nobles need to have posh British accents ASAP. Kind of like in the recent Sherlock Holmes movies.
It's hard to say. I enjoyed my personal story, but it was only one of the many options and for all I know, I chose one of the better ones (Human Orphan Noble). There was also a lot of it that I found enjoyable BECAUSE I was already familiar with the GW world. Having played GW1 for years, and reading all the novels out so far, I wrote about "nuances" in the story that helped me enjoy it perhaps more than someone whose only knowledge of the story is what's rolled out before them in GW2.
For instance, at one point I had to choose between Logan bull-rushing into the white mantle or Anise's more subtle strategy. I went with Anise, and Logan used himself as a decoy. When they appeared to attack him, they are all haughty and self-assured, and Logan's voice acting there was great, very hum-drum and sarcastic. I actually laughed out loud, because I pictured him as so much more staunch and uppity. I appreciated that. But someone who didn't know him prior to the game would have missed the fun of that entirely, or took it only at face value.
The voice acting was adequate overall, good in some parts, a bit campy in others (I agree, Norn were trying a bit too hard) but let's be honest, voice acting is always terrible. People keep swooning over SWTOR, but the voice acting isn't particularly good there, either. Bioware did ~mostly~ good work on the voice acting in the Mass Effect series, but that's pretty much the exception to the rule. Overall, whenever given the option, I choose dubbing that isn't in English. My opinion is, if I can't understand what they're saying (subtitles, ftw!) then I can pretend they're doing it right.
As for people that want to play the bad guy, I can't comment. That's not something I was ever driven to do, but I understand that appeals to some people. Certainly never a bad thing to have more options, and Anet adding it in the future only gives people more content and the game more replayability. So, fine with me.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
So far I like the brutallity of the charr story line.
Where my least favorite is the Norn story line.
Technically speaking though, we haven't even hit "The Searing mark" of the story line, using that a reference where the story completely blind sides the player.
Strictly speaking from rumors I've heard, said event is supposed to be around level 45-50. We wont know till probably this summer is my guess.
From what I've noticed so far is that your choices don't change where you end up, but rather how you get there. I'm ok with that.
What I'm not okay with IS THE WAY HAND GESTURES ARE OVERUSED AND REUSED OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!
I really do hate monotonous meaningless hand gestures, if only more companies had their own motion capture studio, things would be so much better.
I think a lot of the in-game voice acting is great.
I heard these two kids talking in Divinity's Reach:
"When my dad goes to work, he goes to the bar"
"is he a bartender?"
"no that's the weird part!"
The delivery was really good too. There was a lot of grea voice there. I think the way the characters pop out of the screen and talk out of thin air is weird.
What if they went with something like this - Since they have amazing artists? : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGLXC2C-e7w
It's important to add: Just because someone is not that impressed with one aspect of a game it does not make them a hater or whiner.
GW2 beta weekend is still hands down one of the most meaningful gaming experiences I've ever had. the events were amazing. I had meaningful co-op with so many people.. It was amazing. Absolutely mind numbling amazing. No game has ever made me feel like such a awesome centaur slayer, unexpectedly experiencing all these challenging events.
I like the part where these two hunters are talking in a bar, and one is talking about his wife, then a little later....
'So I conquered this savage beast'
'Oh, which reminds me about my wife'
'... what does that have to do with your wife?'
'...'
I think I am right in line with you, Kalfer. The personal story has problems. Its flat and pretty cliche. Offers little choice. But I also don't think it really hurts the game. You can seriously completely ignore it or just speed through it.
However its really not un-enjoyable it just could be alot better.
I am very encouraged that the devs are open about it. I they said "We will fix in The Miracle Patch" I would know that bullshit. They can't and frankly its not the key thing the game turns on.
Its almsot the opposite of SWTOR the class quest is integral. You can't get your companions without it and without certain companions you are a crripple in that game.
Here I ignored the personal quest until level 18.
I think though that the personal stories seem to have some good points and mechanics to them. With honest feedback and a few good iterations I think they could turn it into something pretty good. Won't happen in realease though but maybe by expansion.
Honestly though I never cared reallyt about the personal story. I hoped it was good but never really cared. I think its basis and some aspects of its execution are superior to SWTOR. The SWTOR personal story is overall better. But I think the Guild Wars 2 personal fully executed with all its features taken advantage of has more potential and would be more superior.
In the end SWTORs personal story is just the same old same old quests with nice cinematics. But their voice acting, story and cinematics are better than what i saw in the personal story. The thing that make the personal story potentially better is that each stage is part of the story and is fully scripted in that way. The "cinematics" in GW2 are basically stage direction and then you actually act the play. In SWTOR you just have a boss fight some sort and then a long cinematic with dialog choices.
The execution of the various elements makes SWTOR's personal story better. But the fact that GW2 tries and to some extent succeeds in placing you into the action of the story gives it more potential.
GW2 personal story's cardinal sin is they place you in the action them completely remove you from your character in the cut scenes. Whereas SWTOR always makes sure there are a few active dialogs you particpate with, that they have different character and sometimes that they have signifncant consequences.
In GW2 I got a speech some dude made my avatar say that I didn't really necessarily agree with or too and sometimes was rather stilited and cheesy.
For the small amount of personal story that I did...I thought it was alright. Not spectacular, but okay.
That said that, I feel like the personal story is completely unnecessary and out of place. Just like I thought it was in SWTOR.
Why make an MMORPG and then put a single player game inside of it? I feel like it not only defeats the purpose of an MMORPG, but almost always provides an inferior single player experience when compared to actual single player games.
This is why I didn't really like SWTOR. I felt like I was playing a B-grade KOTOR the whole time. And I basically have the same feelings about the GW2 personal story.
Fortunately, the personal story won't really completely (or even majorly) define your play experience and winds up (for me) just serving as an occasional diversion from actually playing the real game...the MMO.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
A couple more things I want to say before I read all the responses.
My brother was over to check out the game and I mentioned something about how robotic one of the voice actors voices was as we were checking out some of the story stuff. But her voice wasn't necessarily representative of the whole. There were some that were solid and some that were not.
I started two different Charr with two different backgrounds. I don't know how much the quests branch out, but at least up to about level 8, they were different. It was nice to see that there were not only different stories, but different quests for each background.
I for one thought the Norn story was absolutely dreadful. It was my first experience with the game and I was shocked by how bad some of the writing was and how much I really didn't care for the whole "aspect of the animal" crap and how the NPCs were in general.
The humans and charr on the otherhand were pretty decent. It was like night and day for me the difference in how I felt about my character.
Yes I have to say I actually rather liked the Charr Ash legion personal story. In fact I kept doing it DESPITE not liking either human one much.
Talking about this issue is really hard because there is so much variance. It almost seems like humans are the worst because they held on so tightly to the "I am a Hero".
The Charr had cooler stories that seem more free of cliche because the cliche had less context. They also seem to have bette rvoice acting.
I doon't really know that I can say the personal stories ALL suck. I can say the two human ones I did needed help. Not terrible but needed help.
Actually, you bring up an excellant point, one I didn't consider until now. On MANY occasions while playing, I was pointing out to others on vent how great that voice acting was, the stuff that you just randomly walk into. You're right, they did a great job on the NPCs talking to one another. Yet, not all of that translated to the NPC : Player interaction. I'm not sure why that is or how that worked out, but I think some of it might be the disassociation that comes from hearing the voice of the PC (in that, it's not your own, nor might if be how you imagined yourself talking/sounding). It's difficult to get over that, for some people.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
The reason is basically because its more genuine. Bad dialog will make even a great actor seem mediocre.
Its hard for me to believe that Mark Hamil is the same guy that talks about mositure evaporators in a rather stilted manner in the first Star Wars yet does just an amazing and superaltive job as the Joker in various animated series.
Mr. Hamil sounds stilted in Star Wars because the dialog that was written was stilted. Its not because he can't deliver a line. When it comes to voice acting he is basically an icon.
I am not saying the vouce actors are all great. They aren't but enough of them are good enough that with good dialog and less cliche and stilted topics and writing you would not be noticing anything bad.
As a human street kid one of my choices killed my friend. And it wasn't oh hey we find him later. He was dead and then we killed the guy who did it. Thackery basically said "sorry I am pretty sure the jails are full".
But my friend was the typical "Accomplished guy's friend who never does anything right". And the choice was the typical save one or save many.
I mean right from the beginning I was like "Oh man the cliche former criminal trying to make it straight thing".
I did like the finale when we got revenge. And the shining hand vs white mantle part of Act 2 where I was looking for my parents was fairly decent. Again though stilted awkward VA.dialog with one diemnsional side characters.
I do agree the norn storyline seems way weaker than the others, because norns don't really have a deep personality or likeable attributes, they're just giant individualist hunters who focus on trivial things like honor, revenge, and beer.
Still, I had a blast with my personal story. I went to an arena and battled charrs, sylvaris, centaurs. I disguised myself and Eir as merchants so we could sneak into a party and get all the bad guys wasted. I climbed a huge mountain to get the blessing of a minotaur spirit so I could become a minotaur too and raid a camp.
Also, even though the dialogues were not very deep, I'm fine with that, since it's only a lvl 10 story arc.
When u get higher the story become very interesting .
its start slow thought,
~The only opinion that matters is your own.Everything else is just advice,~
@OP
very well written threadstarter.
i don't have any experience with the game yet.
sounds like the stories probably do suck, but then i generally feel that way regardless of the storywriting quality on display. same for books/movies (for me).
but i'd say the concept is an excellent one.
so many "mmo" players of today treat them just like a single player game, and LOOK for those kinds of things, that i think the concept of the way GW2 is including that in the game is great. seperating it out from the multiplayer side to a large extent, so they can more fully embrace the whole single player style, without mucking up the multiplayer side of it too much.
that way people who mainly enjoy one or the other, don't have their experience tainted that much,
and people who like a little of both can pick and choose which they prefer at the moment.
the more seperation between the true multiplayer side of the game, and traditional story/single-player side of the game, the better IMO.
for example getting rid of the level/gear/power gap between vets and noobs when playing PVP is ALWAYS THE WAY IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE since the inception of PVP in online worlds.
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i agree with just about everything, including what i DIDN'T quote.
like i said in previous message, ....... so many MMO players of today are conditioned to look for alot of single-player type content in their MMOs. whether this is a good or bad thing......... IT'S A REAL thing. so they would be dropping a shitload of potential fans by not including this kind of content in the game.
and i think the way they are doing it is great.... so that it CAN be seperated out, and sp peope don't have mp concerns/activities forced on them, and vice versa.
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