Ok, so as it was probably pretty obvious in my first post, one of the major things I will be covering is Guild Wars 2, why? Because I feel it deserves alot of coverage and I’m a big fan of the original Guild Wars and would probably be considered a bit of a fanboy because of it. Now if you asked me “Do you consider yourself a Guild Wars fanboy”, I would have to say that depends on your definition of fanboy.
If you define a fanboy as someone who will defend the game and/or developer to the ends of the earth then no I am not a fanboy however if you define a fanboy as someone who is a very very big fan of that game and/or developer then yes I am a fanboy.
Now with that out of the way, this article is focusing on a newly released article by Arenanet (in particular the wonderful Ree Soesbee) focusing on a characters Personal Story. Before I delve any further, I will now direct your attention to the article in question and ask that you read all of it before reading this article as I don’t plan on reposting things that is already in the article. So if you want to follow along with my thoughts then you probably should read it.
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/personal-stories/personal-story-overview/
Making Things Personal
Now I find it very good that Arenanet are focusing so much on the storyline within the game. I have always been a big fan of story based games and it’s one of the reasons I got into RPGs in the first place. The fact that they are looking to include the best of MMOs and the best of single player RPGs (namely the fun of playing in a persistence based game and the deep compelling stories that you get with single player RPGs) is perhaps one of the things I am most looking forward to.
The persistence nature of the game will allow alot of the things that MMO gamers love, such as playing with friends or meeting random people in the outside areas. You didn’t get this with Guild Wars, you might meet someone in town every so often by randomly speaking into the chat but now you might meet someone while saving them from an attacking monster such as a group of Grawls or finding a place you think looks cool and calling your friends so they can go find you instead of having to go back to a town, add them to your party and then take them.
However this persistence nature doesn’t allow you to tell a very compelling story for your personal character but the instanced nature of Guild Wars allowed this and it did very well at it. What this means is through the use of instancing, we will be able to be apart of a very compelling personal story. What these last two paragraphs are basically trying to say is that this WILL combine both of the good that single player RPGs and MMORPGs bring to the table.
I hope that all made sense, it did in my head at the time. I also like that Arenanet are looking at more than just your own personal character, what I mean is they are looking at everything that will shape your personal story. Such as NPCs and their relationships with each other and with your character. Stuff like this is what will draw you into the story that you are playing. If you’re like me and love good RPG stories then this should hopefully make you happy.
Both Epic and Individual
Ok, so we have several intertwined storylines in Guild Wars 2, let’s focus on each of them for a second. We first have the overall story of the world. That includes the awakening of the Elder Dragons and what they have done to our poor Tyria. I hope eventually we get to stop all the dragons, maybe not in GW2 but maybe an expansion (or several) since well… they are destroying my poor Tyria. In any case it will certainly be an interesting aspect and I have to wonder if we’ll be seeing Dynamic Events with one or more Dragons involved in it at some point in the lifespan of Guild Wars 2.
As for the second story, the rise and fall of Destiny’s Edge, I have to say I am really looking forward to seeing stuff on them. I really liked what I saw in the trailers and I thought they looked very interesting plus the voice acting seemed very well done.
The final part of the intertwined storylines that they mention is the whole point of the article now, it’s the characters personal storyline. Choices a character makes will affect their storyline and in my opinion, this is a great thing. A thing lots of gamers love is to see that their choices affect their story, it makes them feel attached to their character and an MMO needs a character you can feel attached too. Oh and they also mention that Tyria is a busy place with lots of stories going on with lots of different events effecting it, I can’t wait to return to Tyria just from this stuff alone.
The final thing they mention in this part is that they want to make a player feel like the choices they make have a truly impactful effect on the world, to make sure our accomplishments are meaningful, they say it is difficult but not impossible. I have to say the things they are talking about sound great and if they pull it off, they might just make the most epic MMO around but we’ll just have to wait and see, I have faith in Arenanet though.
In the Beginning
Here they have taken character creation one step further, at the start they ask you a bunch of questions from a characters race, class, heritage and even race specific type of stuff such as for Asura, what college they attended and for humans what social background they have or even questions that establish that your character has sympathy for a particular lesser race. They even say your choices will affect your storyline from the get go and will have a profound impact on your story and your interactions with others and that one slightest choice change could change your story and make it entirely different.
While it sounds great in theory, some people may be skeptical and I honestly don’t blame anyone for being skeptical, I’ve seen lots of games fail to live up to their hype for some people (Fable 1 anyway?) so alot of this is more of a ‘wait and see how it works when we play it’ approach. But I think we can safely say that if it is everything Arenanet says it is then this games storyline will be awesome and will have loads of replayability (in terms of making new characters to try out other choices of course), I do have faith in Arenanet though and look forward to making my first character in Guild Wars 2.
The final part of this section and one I am excited about is that we will have a home instanced which I’m guessing will be like a house or pershaps a specialised area for displaying achievements similar to the hall of monuments in Guild Wars 1. Although with that said since they say as you progress through the story, that your home will update accordingly then it might be like a home/Hall of Monuments, I suppose you could relate it to the area I think in Tomb Raider 3 with Laras Mansion and how she had a room (although hidden) with some of her personal prizes from our adventures such as the dagger from Tomb Raider 2.
In Media Res
Here they talk about how things will impact on our story.
We first have the Iconics which is specifically Destiny’s Edge and how each of the races have a member who was in Destiny’s Edge and that member is also the Iconic character for their race. We the character will be involved with becoming a friend or confidant and helping to restore Destiny’s Edge for the final battle against Zhaitan, the Dragon of Orr. And well I like that, we did something similar although probably not as involved in Guild Wars 1 with Devonas group. I am very interested in the history surrounding Destiny’s Edge so this will interest me greatly.
Next we have the Order of Whisper and as a player of Guild Wars: Nightfall will know, we were quite involved with them during that time. The Order of Whispers don’t believe that the dragon can be destroyed physically but instead they look for ways to escape their full awakening and inevitable aftermath. Players could choose to join them and help their cause out and as a long time player of Guild Wars, I would be personally tempted but there are other organisations we can join.
The next order we can join are called “The Durmand Priory”, this order works on collection lost knowledge of the world in hopes that this knowledge and intellect can help save the world from the Dragons. This group sounds quite interesting and I do wonder if any of that knowledge they gather will be references to Guild Wars 1, and I look forward to finding out. Players can choose this order if they wish just like they can choose to play as the Order of Whispers.
And the last order are called “The Vigil”, this order is a group of noble individuals who defend those in need, fighting against the darkness and offers help to those who cannot aid themselves. This group wants to face the threat directly testing Zhaitans power in hope that such methods can one day be used against the dragon itself. This group sounds very interesting as well and like the other two orders, the player can join this one but they can only join ONE of the orders and personally, I think this will be a hard decision for me to make as I like the sound of all three of them.
The Durmand Priory sounds the most interesting because I am curious as to what knowledge they may have acquired but The Vigil plan on taking the enemy head on which is what I am usually used to. Such hard decisions await me in Guild Wars 2 but at least I can make new characters to play a completely different personal Story.
The Nuts and Bolts
I’m only going to spend a short time on this section but here we go:
First of all, I like that there is so many combinations in the story choices, they may not always be apparent depending on how major or minor the choice seems but I really like it. Still we’ll see how it works out when the game eventually comes out.
A big thing I like is that we invite friends along and they will be able to view our personal story. This means for me is that I’ll be playing with my girlfriend and have her come along with me for a bit and she’ll be able to view my personal story and then we’ll go back and I’ll come with her and view her personal story.
I really like that no matter what choices we make, there will be NO gameplay advantages and I’m sure this also pleases a great number of people who may have been worried about this.
They also mention that if a character doesn’t want to continue their story on a particular day, there is plenty of events going on in the world at the same time and I can say for sure, I’ll be checking them out when I’m not doing my characters personal story.
And of course, the final part of this Nuts and Bolts section, even though it could be considered a minor thing, I like that we will get to have a journal of sorts with our Biography stuff in it along with our story so far such as the decisions we made along the way.
The Hereafter
And now we come to the conclusion of this article and in this section, they talk about nothing in particular except that they are aiming to tell a compelling and epic story about the Elder Dragons of Tyria and I honestly can’t wait, this story we will experience in Guild Wars 2 sounds like it will be one of the most epic tale we’ll experience in an MMORPG.
and to conclude my own article, I will say this all sounds very promising and as I said, it may be the most epic tale we’ll experience in an MMORPG but until it is out, it may be a good idea to remain skeptical due to how some games fail to live up to their hype (as I said earlier, Fable 1 anyone?), and now to steal from Ree Soesbee article that this has all been about. I have only one thing to ask you
What is your story?
